Policy would limit inmate autopsies

Suspicious, violent cases unaffected

Arkansas' prisons will no longer have to send the bodies of all inmates who die in their care to the state medical examiner under a new regulation approved Friday by the Board of Corrections.

Instead, the prisons will send only the bodies that warrant review -- such as young inmates or those who died in violent or questionable circumstances -- state prisons Director Wendy Kelley said. Families of inmates also can sign a waiver if they do not want the body of their incarcerated relative to be sent for an autopsy.

The policy change was requested by the state Crime Laboratory as part of an effort to reach out to a number of authorities about unnecessary work being sent to the facility, said the lab's executive director, Kermit Channell.

Channell said the agency does not have the authority to turn away bodies sent to it. A staff of six forensic pathologists at the lab will conduct about 1,600 autopsies this year, he said.

County coroners, as well as police, can choose which cases to send to the medical examiner for review, Channell said. The medical examiner works at the lab.

"There is a level of checking in the free world of what is sent," Board of Corrections Chairman Benny Magness said. "What I understand, in our case, we were sending everything."

Channell said he did not have a good estimate Friday for how many cases the lab received from prisons each year or by how much he expected the new policy to reduce the facility's workload.

The Department of Correction has reported four inmate deaths in September that are under investigation. Another inmate died in August from injuries sustained in an assault at the Tucker Unit in July.

Kelley said prison officials will still notify the Arkansas State Police and a county coroner of an inmate's death regardless of the circumstances.

The Board of Corrections approved the policy without dissent. The policy still needs to be reviewed by the governor and Legislative Council.

Metro on 09/23/2017

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