Inquest plan hits roadblock

Three months before his successful re-election last fall, Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker announced he wanted to bring back coroner inquests to help ease community concerns over police officer-involved deaths.

But Tucker’s plan appears dead, largely due to reluctance by Spokane County Medical Examiner Dr. Sally Aiken to call coroner inquests except under very rare circumstances.

State law allows Aiken to call inquests, in which six jurors consider autopsy results, police reports and hear testimony from the people involved in the fatal actions. Depending on protocol, an attorney for the dead person’s family may have the chance to cross-examine the officers and a deputy prosecutor would direct the proceedings.

The jury would then decide in a public hearing whether the officers were justified in their actions or should face charges. However, the jury’s decision is not binding, meaning Tucker would retain sole discretion either to file charges or exonerate the officers.

“The main purpose of the coroner’s inquest is not only to determine if something wrongful happened, but get it out in the public view,” Tucker said in the interview he initiated on Aug. 9.

But Aiken doesn’t agree.

“In my view, the inquest is not designed to determine if someone is culpable or whether the death is excusable or justifiable. Those are legal questions,” Aiken said. “I am a physician and a scientist.”

Aiken said her reading of the state law is that the sole purpose of inquests is to help her determine the cause and manner of death. Holding inquests for any other reason “would be improper and a waste of taxpayer resources,” according to the county’s current policy on inquests, which Aiken helped author.

Former Spokane County Prosecutor Don Brockett, who was the last prosecutor to request a coroner’s inquest, said Aiken’s comments show a complete misunderstanding of the process.

“That’s why I was opposed to a medical examiner. When you had an elected coroner, his or her purpose was to be answerable to the public for things like the cause of death … and whether there was criminal culpability,” he said. “But we turned it over to a medical person who appears to not want to get involved.”

Tucker announced Tuesday that he will not ask Aiken to hold a coroner’s inquest into the Saturday morning shooting of Jerome Alford, 33, a homeless black man who reportedly ran from and later struggled with Spokane police Sgt. Dan Torok.

Aiken said she’s also generally opposed to coroner’s inquests because they would reveal details about her autopsies.

“It allows the public to have information. I am opposed to that because the statute states that information in the autopsy is confidential,” she said. “I think some of the families would be opposed to having information from the autopsy available publicly in that format.”

Brockett, who served as prosecutor from 1969 to 1994, wonders how, under Aiken’s reading of the law, she allows herself to testify in any homicide case.

“Obviously, if someone gets charged with murder, they will call her to give opinions about how a person died or how a person might be holding a weapon. That’s what forensics is all about,” Brockett said. “This would be the same thing. She would be testifying with regard to the autopsy … in a court proceeding and it’s authorized by statute.”

Brockett said Tucker cannot legally compel Aiken to hold inquests.

Tucker did not return several phone calls to his office and cell phone Wednesday.

Aiken refused to say what Tucker asked of her. But she did say she disagreed with Tucker’s stated reasons for calling future inquests.

“I don’t think the job of the coroner is to decide if people involved in an in-custody death acted appropriately,” Aiken said. “Why would you not have the prosecutor’s office do that?”

Asked why she wouldn’t allow six jurors to decide culpability, as called for in the statute, Aiken replied: “Because that’s not the question I’m supposed to answer. I don’t think that’s the purpose of an inquest, even if it’s a jury that decides that.”

Brockett questions that reasoning. “The statute clearly gives the ME, as it did the coroner, the ability to call an inquest to determine whether there is criminal culpability. It’s all part of the checks and balances, or it’s supposed to be,” he said.

Local attorney Terri Sloyer, of the Center for Justice, said Alford’s death would be a perfect case for six unbiased jurors to review.

“When it’s left to the coroner’s discretion, it’s problematic,” Sloyer said of coroner inquests. “I think this brings back to the forefront the need for an independent oversight agency,” such as an ombudsman’s office or an auditor. Brockett said coroner inquests would go a long way toward helping the public understand what happens during fatal confrontations with police.

“By showing all the facts and circumstances surrounding the manner of death, then the public can make up their minds themselves,” Brockett said. “Otherwise you set up a situation where the public begins to believe that police are totally different than us in terms of having any accountability for their actions.”