Moribund model

Pathologist Bennet Omalu’s groundbreaking diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a deceased football player roiled America’s biggest sport and inspired a movie in which he was played by Will Smith. But none of that appears to have impressed the local politicians responsible for death investigations in California.

Omalu was one of two pathologists who quit their jobs with San Joaquin County last year and accused its elected sheriff-coroner of pressuring them to alter their findings about police killings, among other grievances. Omalu recently reentered the spotlight after family members hired him to investigate Stephon Clark’s controversial death at the hands of police officers, putting the pathologist at odds with Sacramento County’s elected coroner, who is disputing his conclusions.

Such events have drawn attention to the usually obscure officials elected to oversee death investigations in most California counties. Recently introduced legislation by state Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, would take the sensible step of requiring more elected sheriffs and coroners to be replaced by qualified, independent, appointed medical examiners.

Making death investigations answerable to an elected official who typically lacks medical training serves mainly to introduce political and other inappropriate considerations. Moreover, when the offices of sheriff and coroner are combined, as is often the case in California, examinations of fatalities involving police are led by a law enforcement official with an obvious conflict of interest.

The chief limitation of Pan’s bill, SB1303, is that it would apply to only six counties, including Contra Costa, Sonoma, San Joaquin and Stanislaus. While most of California’s largest counties have adopted the medical examiner model, too many smaller counties compromise sensitive investigations by exposing them to the whims of elected law enforcement officials.