San Joaquin County’s expert consultant has strong track record

STOCKTON — The expert who San Joaquin County has hired to help consider the future of its coroner’s office has performed more than 1,300 autopsies and is credited with helping stabilize the medical examiner’s office in Washington, D.C.

Roger A. Mitchell Jr., is one of the youngest chief medical examiners overseeing a morgue in a major city, The Washington Post reported in a 2016 profile. He is in his early 40s.

Mitchell was hired to oversee the District of Columbia’s medical examiner’s office in 2014, reducing a backlog of more than 1,000 cases that had brought national scrutiny upon the office, the Port reported.

In 2016, under Mitchell’s leadership, the D.C. office was given full accreditation for the first time.

His work in San Joaquin County under the auspices of RAM Consulting LLC will be short-lived, but potentially significant. Over the next couple of months, Mitchell is tasked with evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the coroner’s office as it exists today, and will compare the structure of a sheriffcoroner’s office — the most common kind in California — with that of an independent medical examiner’s office like his own.

He will make no formal recommendation about whether San Joaquin should make a change. The county’s two staff pathologists have requested that a medical examiner’s office be established here, citing alleged interference in their work by Sheriff Steve Moore.

“The comparison will not express a preference for one system over the other but will provide the Board of Supervisors with sufficient information so that the Board can make an informed decision,” reads Mitchell’s new contract with the county.

He will be paid an hourly rate of $500, for a grand total not exceeding $50,000. The contract extends through June, though county leadership has promised a report to supervisors by April.

“The county of San Joaquin believes that its citizens deserve an office that performs the coroner functions honestly, efficiently and effectively,” county officials wrote in a description of Mitchell’s task.

Mitchell will review documents, tour the coroner’s office and conduct in-person interviews. He also will evaluate 10 percent of the autopsy reports filed last year, ultimately writing a “comprehensive report.”

In the Post profile, he emphasizes the importance of pathology as a profession, in passionate language.