Bury The Coroner System

If a member of your family dies in circumstances that may require an autopsy, you would want the situation handled with professional skill and sensitivity, wouldn’t you?

On Nov. 5, Spokane County voters can replace their 19th-century coroner system with a modern medical examiner. It’s about time. For more than a decade, the local coroner’s office has been dogged by well-founded charges of ineptitude, rudeness, eccentricity, intransigence and damaging conflicts with hospitals, doctors, police and the families of deceased persons.

The medical examiner’s job would be appointive, filled on the basis of professional qualifications in forensic pathology. The Spokane County Medical Society, like many others, is fed up with the status quo and recommends voters change it.

Our county has too many tragic deaths. It’s time for local government to investigate them professionally.

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