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CORPUS CHRISTI — The Nueces County Medical Examiner's Office may lose certification and be forced to delay critical reports without more workspace and a larger staff in the next two years, officials said.

The office is forced to ask the Commissioners Court for extra resources estimated at $640,000 for the next fiscal year to manage a rapidly increasing workload and national recertification in 2009 that mandates a maximum ratio of autopsies performed for each forensic pathologist, said Nueces County Medical Examiner Dr. Ray Fernandez. That estimate includes a one-time cost of $500,000 for a 2,000-square-foot addition to the office and hiring another pathologist with a $140,000 annual salary.

As medical examiner, Fernandez is responsible for investigating the deaths of all people who die violently, suddenly or unexpectedly. Since 1996, the number of cases reported to the office increased by 54 percent to 1,528 deaths in 2006 from 990 cases in 1996, according to county medical examiner data. The escalating number of cases results from increasing population, more immigrant traffic in the area and a higher frequency of death reports from surrounding counties, Fernandez said.

"The volume of work has grown tremendously," Fernandez said. "Right now I'm the chief examiner, the associate and the one who locks up the place."

While the office isn't backlogged, it is getting close and may start seeing delays in autopsy reports, death certificates and other documents if something isn't done, Fernandez said. These documents directly impact residents in the ability to execute an estate and file insurance claims, he said.

A delay in autopsy reports -- or if the office isn't recertified during its next review scheduled for fall 2009 -- could jeopardize the prosecution of homicides and police investigations, said District Attorney Carlos Valdez. Prosecutors are unable to prove a homicide case without the testimony and findings of the medical examiner, Valdez said.

"We're talking about the criminal justice system -- ultimately protection of the public," he said. "If something breaks down in the criminal justice system, it affects everything and in the end it may cause guilty people to walk free."

The Nueces County office is one of five statewide that are certified by the National Association of Medical Examiners out of 13 offices statewide, according to the association. According to Valdez, that certification adds a degree of credibility during criminal trials.

certified office

Medical examiner's offices, along with all statewide crime labs, were required to be certified under a 2005 state law, Fernandez said. However, the state granted a temporary exemption to medical examiners before the law took effect.

The Nueces County Office received certification by the National Association of Medical Examiners in November 2004 to gear up for what is expected to be a requirement in coming years. The exemption still is in effect but may be dropped during the 2009 legislative session, Fernandez said.

One of the certification provisions bars having more than 325 autopsies for each forensic pathologist, and the recommended maximum is no more than 250 autopsies each.

In 2006, the Nueces County office performed 328 autopsies stemming from Nueces County, which does not include autopsies of bodies from the 16 surrounding counties the office serves.

Data for autopsies from surrounding counties in the past few years was not immediately available, but likely add 100 to 150 autopsies per year, Fernandez said.

"We are at a crossroads here -- we're either going to move resources, maintain accreditation and be in compliance or expect to see delays," Fernandez said. "If nothing's done (the delays) probably would come sooner rather than later. It would probably be in the coming year or the following year after that."

considering request

Fernandez presented to commissioners requests for a facility upgrade, an extra forensic pathologist and an assistant last month during the court's budget workshops. County Judge Loyd Neal said last week that the court understands the request and will come to a decision before the 2007-2008 budget is finalized in September.

"We don't want this office not to be certified," Neal said. "With that said, there's a price tag attached to that of several hundred thousand dollars. ... One of the issues we will look at is the importance of doing this in a timely basis, and how do we pay for it."

The 2,000-square-foot expansion of the office would include an office for the extra forensic pathologist, additional workspace and a family grieving room, Fernandez said.

The request also includes hiring a permanent autopsy assistant.

"We certainly are going to work with (Dr. Fernandez) in every way we can to make sure we've looked at all alternatives and make sure we are properly equipped and funded for when inspection comes," Neal said. "But there's no guarantees. We have several million dollars' worth of requests before us and this is one of them."

Contact David Kassabian at 886-3778 or kassabiand@caller.com

The number of cases reported to the office increased by 54% to 1,528 deaths in 2006 from 990 cases in 1996.

Responsibilities

Investigate the deaths of people who die violently, suddenly or unexpectedly.

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Law: “the State’s confession of error in the Supreme Court of the United States is contrary to our state’s procedural law for presenting a claim on ap

Law: “the State’s confession of error in the Supreme Court of the United States is contrary to our state’s procedural law for presenting a claim on appeal

Google Yourself Corpus Christi: When Carlos Valdez Confesses Error Does Not The Same Rule Apply?

Google Yourself Corpus Christi: When Carlos Valdez Confesses Error Does Not The Same Rule Apply?

First, in seeking the death penalty, prosecutors sometimes overlook glaring illegalities.

"courts, especially state courts, are too often willing to overlook even obvious constitutional flaws when reviewing death penalty cases."

And if they are "willing to overlook even obvious constitutional flaws and glaring illegalities when Prosecuting & reviewing death penalty cases."

WATT about all of the other cases?

How many "overlooks" of "constitutional flaws" or "glaring illegalities" have become tools of Cheating Prosecutors who have forgotten "Prosecutors, despite striking hard blows, must never lose sight of their ultimate obligation to do justice in every case.

How many Prosecutors deliberately commit the error of failing to file a reply brief in an Appeal Process because it deprives the appellant of exculpatory testimony, evidence, and confessions of error or witness tampering by the State Prosecuting Attorney?



----
CONFESSING ERROR
By EDWARD LAZARUS
----

Friday, Jun. 16, 2000

Earlier this month, Vincent Saldano, one of the 468 inmates on Texas' death row, had his death sentence vacated. This development was duly reported in the press. But accounts of Saldano's good fortune uniformly failed to appreciate what makes his reprieve truly newsworthy and potentially a landmark.

Saving Saldano: Texas Confesses Error

Saldano was not freed from the prospect of execution by the actions of a court or even, as occasionally happens, by the clemency of a governor. His death sentence was erased because Texas, through its newly created office of the solicitor general, "confessed error" in his case -- that is, it admitted, despite defeating Saldano's initial appeals in court, that his death sentence was illegally obtained. Quite simply, this never happens, either in Texas or in the dozens of other states with active death penalty laws. It is thus worth pausing to consider the value and potential implications of Saldano's case as well as the notion of confessing error.

Saldano had received a death sentence in part due to profoundly troubling testimony by a state expert witness at the sentencing phase of his trial. The expert, a clinical psychologist named Walter Quijano, suggested that Saldano should be executed because, as an Hispanic, he posed a special risk of future dangerousness to society. To support this astonishing conclusion, the expert pointed out that Hispanics make up a disproportionately large amount of Texas' prison population.

It does not take a tenured professor of constitutional law to realize that linking racial identity with a propensity for violence was not only bizarre but also a violation of the equal protection clause. Indeed, that it should take a confession of error by the state to correct this problem highlights at least two problems in the current administration of the death penalty. First, in seeking the death penalty, prosecutors sometimes overlook glaring illegalities. The same flaw identified in Saldano's case infects at least seven other Texas capital cases. Second (and perhaps even more distressing), courts, especially state courts, are too often willing to overlook even obvious constitutional flaws when reviewing death penalty cases. After all, before the state's confession of error, Saldano had lost all of his appeals.

Under these circumstances, one might think that confessions of error would be, if not commonplace, at least occasional. On average, the Solicitor General of the United States confesses error in two or three criminal cases every year -- even though it is a safe bet that federal prosecutions, conducted by better trained lawyers with greater supervision, are less likely to contain obvious legal errors than their state counterparts. As the Supreme Court recognized when endorsing the practice in 1942, "the public trust reposed in the law enforcement officers of the Government requires that they be quick to confess error, when, in their opinion, a miscarriage of justice may result from their remaining silent." But as a practical matter, states never confess error in death penalty cases (even though courts overturn roughly two-thirds of all death sentences as legally infirm) -- and some states candidly admit that their policy is never to confess error.

Mutual Distrust

Why? One crucial and usually overlooked factor is the deep antagonism that has grown up over time between state death penalty prosecutors and the death penalty abolitionist lawyers who seek to foil them in every case. The abolitionists, prosecutors know all too well, never concede that their clients deserve the death penalty or that the death penalty was legally imposed -- no matter how flimsy their arguments in a given case. Rather, they use every procedural and substantive trick in the book to delay executions.

There can be no denying that such abolitionist tactics have angered and frustrated state prosecutors. And one response to these understandable emotions has been for prosecutors to mirror the fight-to-the-bitter-end approach of their opponents.

The problem with this reciprocation, however, is simply that the ethical duties of prosecutors and defense attorneys are vastly different. Defense attorneys are duty-bound to scratch and claw to win for their clients. Prosecutors, by contrast, despite striking hard blows, must never lose sight of their ultimate obligation to do justice in every case.

That may sound trite and perhaps overly idealistic, but it has a practical side as well. Prosecutorial confessions of error -- knowing when to fold them, as it is known -- establish credibility. They create trust in the system, a sense that someone is being careful and exercising sound judgment, that extends far beyond any single case. And that can make a world of difference for someone like me, who is not morally opposed to the death penalty but skeptical of how it is imposed.

Death Penalty Politics

In addition, the reluctance of state prosecutors to confess error is a clear reflection of how politics affects the death penalty. Up until now, anyway, undoing a death sentence was akin to political suicide for an elected district attorney or state attorney general, or for any state official with ambitions for re-election or higher office. And yet the willingness of Texas' new solicitor general to confess error in the Saldano case suggests a possible turning point. With the current groundswell of death penalty opposition based on the possibility of executing an innocent person, elected officials may now find some advantage in approaching capital cases (even those where innocence is not an issue) with a greater degree of care and honesty.

case will start a broad trend. But there is reason to believe that the tide is indeed turning. On June 9, Texas Attorney General John Cornyn announced the results of an investigation into other death penalty cases involving testimony by state expert Walter Quijano. Cornyn acknowledged that Dr. Quijano had provided testimony in six other death penalty cases similar to his improper testimony in the Saldano case. Cornyn's staff has advised defense lawyers for the six inmates now on death row that his office will not oppose efforts to overturn their sentences based on Quijano's testimony. In response, a pessimist might note that Texas is appealing a ruling in another capital case that the defendant received inadequate counsel -- when, indisputably, his lawyer slept through much of the trial. But doing the right thing has a contagious quality to it. Or at least so we can hope.

Edward Lazarus, a former federal prosecutor, is the legal correspondent for Talk Magazine and the author of Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court.

CCISD: Dear CCISD Trustees, Without Due Process & Community Input; No Choice Will Be Bona-Fide

"That Just the Way It Is. I Gotta Get Paid"

I must say the tactics being carried out right now are transferring from a division between majority & minority groups to a division of within the minority groups. This concept is how CCISD manipulates. Think about it? Investigations, Colloquial Intelligence, Manipulation of one’s JOB opportunities, personal & political missions and nanotechnology to forecast, design and carry out plans ranging from 0 to at least a good 20 years. WIA slush fund is all about the final data in each category. There are many exemptive solutions & creative methods that are encouraged. The WIA allows the creation of multiple programs and agencies to create JOBS or JOB training. WIA is the DARE program, COPS program, Communities in Schools, and anything they can draw up a quick blueprint of. Innovation and Malleability produce stellar new programs from dedicated grant writers given the concepts and goals of a brainstorm. This is a brilliant concept for our youth. The problem is the adults take candy from the babies. CCISD is way to big for their britches. A board much too elevated to consider input from the community. Such audacity to condescend to engagement of the community they fleece in the justification “they know WATT is best for us”. Furthermore, contrary to their schmoozing persona-ism they do not know it all “we wouldn’t understand the process so why do we need to know how they conduct the business of running our school district?”. We would never understand anyway? The concern is to make the numbers JIVE with each other and the terminology is dynamic so are the variables applicable for each method of calculation.

“I guess it just depends on WATT your definition of is………..

IS?”

"I see no changes all I see is racist faces
misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under I wonder what it takes to make this
one better place, let's erase the haters
Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right
'cause both black and white is talkin smack tonight
and only time we heal is when we love each other
it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uhh
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact
the penitentiary's packed"
tupac