S.J. County forensic pathologist resigns
Dr. Susan Parson claims Sheriff Steve Moore interfered with Coroner’s Office investigations
STOCKTON — A San Joaquin County forensic pathologist announced that she will resign her position after barely a year on the job, claiming that Sheriff Steve Moore attempted to control and influence death investigations performed by the Coroner’s Office.
In her two-page resignation letter, Dr. Susan Parson wrote that she was honored to work alongside renowned pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, but said that Moore made her “day-to-day experience in the County personally unbearable and professionally unsustainable.”
Parson added, “Sheriff Moore’s retaliatory behavior, arrogant expectations and of those under his employ, created an utterly untenable work environment — a complete hindrance to my professional growth and development in medicine and the discharging of my duties in a safe, non-threatening work environment.”
Her letter does not name specific autopsies or investigations in which the sheriff is alleged to have interfered. She did say that he ordered physicians to report to him like rank-and-file sheriff’s officers, and that he “forcefully” tried to take over physician scheduling and attempted to “control and influence our professional judgment and conclusions.”
Parson said she will send county supervisors memos that detail the behavior she described in her letter, the existence of which was first reported by Bay Area radio station KQED. Parson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Moore, who is in his fourth term as sheriff, denies that he influenced Parson’s work. In a brief statement released Tuesday, Moore noted that the law requires him to make the final determination about a person’s manner of death. Moore serves as both sheriff and coroner, the same consolidated system used in most other California counties.
deeply value the work of pathologist Susan Parson and am sad to learn she has a negative view of our experience working together,” Moore wrote. “However, I want to make it clear that at no time did I attempt to control or influence her professional judgment and conclusions.”
Retired sheriff’s Sgt. Pat Withrow, who is running for sheriff next spring, said he hasn’t met Parson but said her story has credence because she had “nothing to gain and everything to lose” by coming forward.
For one thing, she is giving up a job working with Omalu, whose work documenting brain trauma in football players was highlighted in the film “Concussion.” In her resignation letter, Parson wrote that working with Omalu has been a “privilege.”
She is also giving up a job which pays $235,000 a year with an increase to $245,000 next June, under a contract that was supposed to extend through June 2019. The job came with a $20,000 signing bonus which Parson must return if she resigns prior to October 2020. Parson was hired on Oct. 3, 2016.
Withrow said the claims made by Parson validate criticism of other aspects of Moore’s tenure, including allegations that evidence guns that had been sold to a wholesaler were then purchased by Sheriff ’s Office employees at a discount. The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office cleared Moore of any criminal wrongdoing.
Moore’s office is also the target of a federal lawsuit claiming that the remains of a murder victim were exhumed from a Linden well in a careless manner.
The new allegation that Moore interfered with death investigations is “everyone’s worst nightmare,” Withrow said.
“Instead of just going by the facts of the case and letting the chips fall where they may, we have the top law enforcement agent in the county changing what the facts are,” he said. “We cannot let that happen.”
This week’s news also raises questions about who will conduct hundreds of death investigations each year in the county, and how much that will cost.
Parson was brought on in part to save money. Before she was hired, the county was forced to sometimes contract out autopsy work to private providers, or even to neighboring counties, when Omalu wasn’t available. This cost more than $430,000 in 2015-16, far exceeding Parson’s salary, according to a county staff report.
And while Omalu has made no announcement about his own future with the county, Parson wrote in her resignation letter that she was “certain” he, too, will be unable to continue to work there.
If Omalu leaves, that would result in a “massive and wholly avoidable loss to the county,” she wrote. County officials said last year that there is a shortage of qualified candidates and that the hiring process is lengthy.
Reached by phone Tuesday, San Joaquin County Supervisor Chuck Winn said he was “disappointed” at the news of Parson’s departure.
“I thought we really had an opportunity to move forward with some stability,” he said.
As for the concerns raised about Moore, Winn said, “We’ll have to wait and see what issues specifically she raised and deal with them.”
San Joaquin County is not the only place where pressure has reportedly been applied to pathologists or medical examiners. In a 2011 survey, the National Association of Medical Examiners found that 22 percent of pathologists had felt pressure from elected officials or political appointees to change death certificates. A total of 82 percent had experienced pressure from either political officials or from family members.
The National Research Council examined the issue in 2009, concluding that scientific assessments by pathologists should be independent of law enforcement efforts to either prosecute suspects or determine whether a crime had been committed.
Last year, in Santa Clara County, a medical examiner who claimed interference by the sheriff in that county asked supervisors to remove the sheriff’s control from the medical examiner’s office. A subsequent bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown included some new protections against interference, but counties are still allowed by law to consolidate the duties of sheriff and coroner. And most do.