Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: We got a lot. Hey. We are back in senate judiciary. It's February 24. We are dealing with s two ten, which involves autopsy reports. We don't have this bill in our possession, technically, but we were asked to take a look at that part of it just to make sure it's it's good in terms of the judiciary context. So we have Katie McLinn from Legis Council and for his whole universe. Thank you.

[Katie McLinn]: This is Senate Health and Welfare's committee report, and I know you've already looked at this during the second reading on the floor. So what this language does is right now under HIPAA, autopsy reports can already be disclosed to certain individuals. And that's existing law. It's not codified. So the underlying bill is introduced codifies that HIPAA path by which individuals are already receiving disclosed autopsy reports from the Office of the Medical Examiner. This is an instance of amendment. And it creates a secondary path if an individual isn't authorized under HIPAA to receive an autopsy report. This creates a court process by which a petitioner can file with the probate division to receive an autopsy report. There are various considerations that the court would have to give to that request. And then the court could decide, one, whether the autopsy report could be disclosed at all. And if so, should it be redacted? Should there be any limitations on how and whether it's distributed? So that's what this language does. This language is the result of working with Judge Zonay, the health department on behalf of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the state's attorney. So I think by the time they left Senate Health and Welfare, each of those parties had signed off on this particular set of language. So I'll just read through it with you. An individual who's not authorized to receive the autopsy report pursuant to subdivision one of the subsection b, again, that's in the bills introduced, may petition the probate division of the superior court for a copy of the autopsy report. The petition shall contain an affidavit attesting to relationship to the decedent and the reason the petitioner is seeking the autopsy report. The petitioner shall notify the office of the chief medical examiner and the state's attorney of the county in which the death occurred within five days after filing the petition. The office and the state's attorney shall have an opportunity to respond within fourteen days after notice. If the superior court finds that the petitioner has demonstrated good cause for the petitioner to obtain the autopsy report, the state's attorney and the state's attorney does not object. It shall order the office of the chief medical examiner to provide a copy to the petitioner. Here's that language in whole or in part and may may place restrictions on the petitioner's dissemination of the copies provided. And then we have a definition on page two of, well, what is meant by good cause? This kind of gives some instructions to the judge. What does the legislature mean when we're saying that it could be disclosed for a showing of good cause? First, the court would look at the relationship of the petitioner to the decedent and the decedent's family, whether the disclosure is necessary for evaluation of governmental performance, the seriousness of intrusion into the decedent and the decedent decedent family's privacy, whether the disclosure is by the least intrusive means available, including whether and to what degree redaction of some portions of the autopsy report is appropriate, and the availability of similar information and other public records regardless of form. So those are the considerations under a good cause. And that's it.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: So would this generally be used in a contested state?

[Katie McLinn]: To know how a person Yeah,

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: I'm just curious what context could this

[Katie McLinn]: be used in. Well, right now, the testimony that was brought by a constituent of Senator Hardy, I'm sorry, had an adult daughter. And she was trying to seek the autopsy report of the adult daughter. The adult daughter had two children. And the adult daughters the father of the children had not been in the picture. After the adult daughter passed away, the father of the children came back into the picture. And because he was the guardian of the children and they were the next of kin, he received autopsy report instead of the mother of the adult daughter. And so that was the conversation in which are there other circumstances or avenues in which somebody could receive an autopsy report even if they're that not next of kin person. And the court would have to balance why the person is asking for the autopsy report, how it affects the privacy of the family, and other interests that the person may have in receiving an autopsy report. That's the specific example that was brought to health and welfare. One of the questions

[Sen. Robert Norris]: that I have is there is a portion in here about the court may set parameters around who the person who receives it can share it with, but there is no enforcement. So the person can have those parameters and ignore them entirely. And what do you do?

[Katie McLinn]: I imagine that they could be held in contempt of court if they don't follow judicial orders. Did

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: any of the stakeholders who testified on this raise any issues? I mean, I think you mentioned this was kind of their language.

[Katie McLinn]: Yeah. So the first pass, the bills introduced didn't have language around it talked about good cause, but it didn't have all that definitional language around what good cause meant. And that was something that Judge Sone specifically raised, that a court was going to need some parameters to use to balance whether or not to release an autopsy report. He also raised the issue of making it possible to redact portions of the report if it was appropriate and to allow the court to place limitations on the dissemination of the report. So those were three issues that were all raised and addressed by Judge Zonay.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Did they have any testimony about how often this happens? Like No. I don't know if that's

[Katie McLinn]: I'm trying to think of what judge Zonay said. I I think he said he wasn't exactly certain about what the staff time would look like or what this would be too. Please don't quote me on that. But I'm sort of recalling those were those along his comments. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: It's probably not an object, right? Thank you. You're welcome. I will relay that to the floor tomorrow on February.

[Sen. Robert Norris]: Okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim]: Can you see if Rick could be available? We can go off her until Rick gets here. Okay. Okay.