Autopsy Reports and Tom Reilly
I have to comment on the news stories last week about Attorney General Tom Reilly's phone call to the Worcester County DA to make sure an autopsy report was not released to the public.
Without passing judgment on whether Tom Reilly's actions were wise, if he really did call the DA to make sure that an autopsy report was not released, as he maintains, then he was assuming that DA Conte did not understand the Massachusetts Public Records Law. (The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held in 1989 that autopsy reports conducted by a medical examiner are exempt from disclosure because they are "medical files or information.")
Is that because often public officials do not understand the Massachusetts Public Records law?
Without passing judgment on whether Tom Reilly's actions were wise, if he really did call the DA to make sure that an autopsy report was not released, as he maintains, then he was assuming that DA Conte did not understand the Massachusetts Public Records Law. (The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held in 1989 that autopsy reports conducted by a medical examiner are exempt from disclosure because they are "medical files or information.")
Is that because often public officials do not understand the Massachusetts Public Records law?
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