How flawed are death investigations conducted by medical examiners and coroners in the U. S.?

Chris Reynolds vividly remembers his first encounter with the work of forensic pathologist Dr. Thomas Gill.It was 2001. Reynolds, a Santa Rosa private investigator, was hired by a Sonoma County man accused of killing his wife. Gill, who conducted the wife's autopsy, was the prosecution's key witness, having determined the death was a "textbook" case of suffocation.

Reynolds' client's prospects looked grim. But when Reynolds dug into Gill's background, he unspooled a history in which Gill landed post after post despite a lengthening trail of errors and, in one instance, drinking on the job.

Gill had been forced out of a teaching position at an Oregon university, and then fired for inaccurate findings and alcohol abuse by the coroner in Indianapolis, Reynolds discovered. Demoted for poor performance as a fellow for the Los Angeles County Coroner, he resurfaced at a private autopsy company in Northern California.

Reynolds learned that Gill had missed key evidence in the Sonoma County case and that he had been coached by prosecutors to downplay his past, prompting the dismissal of the murder charge.

Gill's ability to resurrect his career time and again reflects a profound weakness at the center of the U.S. system of death investigation.

A chronic shortage of qualified forensic pathologists allows even questionably competent practitioners to remain employable. The absence of trained practitioners is so acute that many jurisdictions don't look closely at the doctors they employ. Some of the officials who hired Gill acknowledged they knew about his problems but said they had no other viable options.

With no national oversight of forensic pathologists or standards that dictate who can do autopsy work, there is nothing to prevent Gill from resuming his career.

In some cases, officials in charge of death investigation are more concerned with costs than with competent autopsies, said Dr. John Pless, a director of the National Association of Medical Examiners and retired forensic pathology professor at Indiana University.


The following comment was posted by Robert Von Bargen:
Feb. 25, 2:20 p.m.
As a retired medical malpractice defense attorney, I can attest to the extent to which doctors are able to move from state to state or town to town and somehow escape their past.
I had the task of representing a young doctor who thought she was in a valid fellowship program, but the doctor who ran it had been disciplined and/or barred from practice in at least three other states.
The living can now check their doctor’s record at medical society websites. Autopsy surgeons, however, have compliant victims who are unable to choose their doctor.

Link to the article & comments section...
http://www.propublica.org/article/california-county-opens-review-into-autopsies-by-doctor-with-checkered-past

Link:
http://www.propublica.org/article/second-chances-underscore-flaws-in-death-investigations