A recent inves­ti­ga­ton by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram uncov­ered a series of mis­takes by med­ical exam­in­ers in Texas. ​“Medical exam­in­ers have goofed up eye col­or and gen­der. They’ve made mis­takes on the loca­tions of scars or tat­toos, described gall­blad­ders and appen­dix­es that had long since been removed – even con­fused one body for anoth­er,” not­ed the sto­ry. Webb County Chief Medical Examiner Corinne Stern was crit­i­cized for an autop­sy she per­formed on an infant while she was work­ing in Alabama. Her report indi­cat­ed that the infant was suf­fo­cat­ed, but oth­er experts con­clud­ed ​“her find­ing was based on junk sci­ence and that the [baby] was still­born.” Following the experts’ report, the cap­i­tal mur­der charge against the baby’s moth­er was dropped.

In 2007, for­mer Travis County med­ical exam­in­er Roberto Bayardo recant­ed his orig­i­nal tes­ti­mo­ny that helped con­vict Austin baby-sit­ter Cathy Lynn Henderson of cap­i­tal mur­der and placed her on death row for the death of a baby. Twelve years ear­li­er, Dr. Bayardo had tes­ti­fied that the baby’s cause of death was from receiv­ing inten­tion­al blows. His new tes­ti­mo­ny said it was unclear what had hap­pened and Henderson may have acci­den­tal­ly dropped the child. ​“The work of the med­ical exam­in­er’s office is just so slip­shod,” said Tommy Turner, the for­mer spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor who put a Lubbock med­ical exam­in­er behind bars for falsifying autopsies.

Former Harris County Medical Examiner Joye Carter’s mis­take regard­ing a victim’s time of death led to the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of an ex-con. Carter report­ed that the vic­tim had been dead for 25 days, while foren­sic pathol­o­gists claimed the vic­tim could not have been dead for more than two weeks. The defen­dant could not have com­mit­ted the crime if the vic­tim had been dead for the short­er time because he was in jail. The con­vict­ed man’s exe­cu­tion was post­poned because of the dis­crep­an­cy. ​“The state does not keep track of MEs in any shape, form or fash­ion,” Bexar County Chief Medical Examiner Randall Frost said. The state does­n’t even know how many cer­ti­fied foren­sic pathol­o­gists work in gov­ern­ment offices, he added.

“There’s no room for error when somebody’s life depends on their find­ings,” said pri­vate crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tor Tina Church.

(Y. Berard, ​“With lit­tle over­sight in Texas, autop­sies often care­less,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 26, 2009). See Arbitrariness and Innocence.

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