Impartial journalist Derek Sherwood submitted a information request in Centre County, Pennsylvania, in January 2026. He asked an post-mortem file associated with a 1987 chilly case that he used to be researching for a ebook challenge.
After Coroner Scott Sayers denied the request, Sherwood effectively appealed to the Place of work of Open Data, or OOR, a state company liable for adjudicating Proper-To-Know Legislation disputes.
However Sayers nonetheless refused to unlock the file.
On Might 14, the day earlier than he used to be legally required to agree to the OOR’s choice, Sayers received a short lived court docket injunction that shielded the post-mortem file from unlock.
Round the similar time, PennLive reporter Jenna Sensible asked 3 post-mortem experiences associated with a 2025 crime spree from Susquehanna County Coroner Jessica Chiaramonte. Like Sayers, Chiaramonte additionally denied the request after which filed motions with the Court docket of Commonplace Pleas to seal the experiences.
And once I contacted Clearfield County Coroner Kim Shaffer-Snyder in Might to request post-mortem experiences for 3 males who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, I used to be quoted US$2,100 for a brief stack of published pages.
Those studies mirror a much wider trend. In counties throughout Pennsylvania, coroners automatically refuse to make post-mortem experiences and different information to be had to participants of the general public.
Coroners’ causes for this are inconsistent and frequently unclear. Once in a while they are saying that liberating post-mortem experiences would jeopardize ongoing regulation enforcement actions. Once in a while they cite scientific privateness requirements that don’t follow to post-mortem experiences. And once in a while they don’t supply any reasoning in any respect.
When coroners do comply with unlock their information, they fee up to $700 in keeping with case. Those charges position post-mortem experiences out of succeed in for many requesters, together with newshounds and researchers like me.
I’m a postdoctoral fellow learning the affects of mass incarceration on drugs and public well being. I’m additionally a contract reporter who makes use of public information to grasp what is going on at the back of the partitions of prisons and jails.
In 2022 I partnered with colleague Terence Keel, a professor of human biology and society, to systematically request post-mortem experiences associated with masses of deaths in prisons and jails throughout Pennsylvania.
We submitted requests in over 3 dozen counties. Then we waited. And waited.
Our plan used to be to habits a rigorous statewide learn about of deaths in custody. As an alternative, we found out that post-mortem experiences don’t seem to be just about as public in observe as Pennsylvania regulation calls for.
What PA state regulation calls for
The Pennsylvania County Code supplies two pathways wherein participants of the general public can download post-mortem experiences and different coroners information.
First, a requester can download them without delay from the coroner in the course of the fee of statutory charges. That is your best option to be had if a requester desires an post-mortem file that used to be produced throughout the present calendar 12 months.
In maximum puts, alternatively, those charges don’t follow to older experiences. In all counties with fewer than 500,000 citizens, the regulation calls for coroners to deposit the previous 12 months’s information with the county prothonotary at the start of every new 12 months. The prothonotary is an unbiased elected legitimate who serves as a chosen record-keeper, amongst different tasks.
As soon as within the prothonotary’s custody, all coroners information are to be made to be had “for the inspection of interested members of the public” – no charges required. That is the second one means a requester can download an post-mortem file in Pennsylvania.
However the state’s biggest jurisdictions, together with Philadelphia collar counties equivalent to Greenbacks, Sir Bernard Law and Delaware, are exempt from this requirement. Requesters in the ones counties will have to pay the statutory charges regardless of how outdated the asked post-mortem file could also be.
Because of carve-outs like this, post-mortem experiences within the counties with probably the most prison deaths are least out there to public evaluation.
Philadelphia and Allegheny counties
Philadelphia County and Allegheny County, the place Pittsburgh is situated, are the one jurisdictions in Pennsylvania to have a prime scientific examiner. Not like a coroner, who’s most often elected via the folk, a scientific examiner is appointed via the county government or well being commissioner.
In a landmark 2023 case introduced via journalist Brittany Hailer, the Commonwealth Court docket of Pennsylvania dominated the Allegheny County Scientific Examiner’s Place of work used to be topic to the similar public unlock necessities as coroners in other places within the state.
Hailer had asked the post-mortem file for Daniel Pastorek, a 63-year-old guy who died in Allegheny County Prison in 2020 with out leaving at the back of a documented subsequent of family. The Allegheny County Scientific Examiner’s Place of work denied Hailer’s request at the foundation that she used to be now not associated with Pastorek, and their coverage used to be to unlock post-mortem experiences best to subsequent of family. However the Commonwealth Court docket dominated that Hailer used to be entitled to pay the costs and obtain Pastorek’s post-mortem file, irrespective of her identification.
When Hailer in any case received the file, she discovered that the scientific examiners by no means carried out a complete post-mortem. They simply seen Pastorek’s frame, then declared that he died of herbal reasons.
However the Philadelphia Scientific Examiner’s Place of work isn’t topic to this ruling. Philadelphia, because the state’s biggest county via inhabitants, is carved out of the segment of the Pennsylvania County Code referred to as the Coroner’s Act.
The Philadelphia Scientific Examiner’s Place of work releases post-mortem experiences best to subsequent of family or in line with a subpoena.
The Philadelphia Scientific Examiner’s Place of work has made no adjustments to its insurance policies in gentle of Hailer v. Allegheny County, Garrow added, mentioning the Coroner’s Act carve-out and the Philadelphia House Rule Constitution of 1951, which eradicated the administrative center of the coroner.
Top charges, however ‘no discretion’ – in concept
Pennsylvania regulation establishes prime charges for coroners’ information – $500 in keeping with post-mortem file, plus an extra $100 every for toxicology and coroner–investigator experiences.
By way of comparability, the Los Angeles County Scientific Examiner fees a complete of $32 for a complete file that incorporates all 3.
However the hefty ticket in Pennsylvania comes with an unambiguous ensure.
In a 2012 choice referred to as Hearst Tv Inc. v. Norris, the Pennsylvania Splendid Court docket held that if a requester can pay the associated fee, the coroner will have to give you the asked checklist. The coroner has “no discretion” in such circumstances, the court docket dominated.
But when Keel and I attempted to procure post-mortem experiences in 2022, coroners in 21 counties failed to reply to our requests in any respect. That is even supposing Pennsylvania’s Proper-To-Know Legislation calls for county officers to recognize receipt of all requests inside 5 industry days.
Any other 3 coroners said receipt of our requests however stopped responding to us after we attempted to make preparations to view or acquire the experiences.
And coroners in 10 counties, together with Beaver, Centre, Chester, Dauphin, Indiana and York, denied our requests outright.
We appealed to the Place of work of Open Data, which persistently dominated in our want and characterised one coroner’s prison arguments as “frivolous.”
Defying the general public deposit requirement
The Coroner’s Act stipulates that during counties with fewer than 500,000 citizens, the coroner will have to deposit “all official records and papers for the preceding year in the office of the prothonotary” for “the inspection of interested members of the public.”
However of the 41 counties we contacted in 2022, best in 3 used to be the prothonotary or the county open information officer in fact in ownership of post-mortem experiences and in a position to unlock them to us.
Some coroners gave the look to be unaware in their accountability to deposit their information with the prothonotary, telling us they’d by no means achieved so. Different coroners advised us that they’d entered into agreements with their native prothonotaries about preserving custody in their information. Such agreements don’t have any transparent statutory foundation beneath the County Code.
Nonetheless different coroners, alternatively, attempted to make use of the distance between the regulation and their workplaces’ practices to stymie our requests.
Sayers, for instance, claimed that his administrative center’s post-mortem experiences have been all within the custody of the prothonotary. He prompt we use Webia – Centre County’s on-line information retrieval gadget – to find them.
Webia is a pay-to-use database. It calls for a fee merely to arrange an account, and it mechanically collects a rate for every seek a person plays. After a couple of days of high-priced and tedious looking out, we concluded that Sayers had misled us.
The Place of work of Open Data agreed.
“There is no evidence that the requested autopsy and toxicology reports were ever deposited with the County Prothonotary,” the appeals officer wrote. “The practical effect is that any requester … is left to obtain them, at great cost,” via paying the statutory charges, he added.
A identical tale opened up in Dauphin County. Coroner Graham Hetrick denied our request and advised us to search for post-mortem experiences on the prothonotary’s administrative center, regardless of by no means having deposited them there.
After the OOR accused him of appearing “in violation of the public interest,” Hetrick in any case launched the post-mortem experiences we asked.
Sayers, alternatively, appealed the OOR’s resolution to the Centre County Court docket of Commonplace Pleas. We didn’t have the sources to battle the case, and the court docket dominated in Sayers’ want.
The pass judgement on’s 95-word opinion didn’t cope with any of the issues raised within the OOR’s 11-page ultimate resolution, together with the appeals officer’s conclusion that “the County, based upon the actions of its Coroner, may have acted in bad faith.”
I contacted Hetrick and Sayers closing 12 months to invite for his or her responses to the OOR’s criticisms. Neither answered. I reached out to Sayers in June 2026 with a extra detailed record of questions, however once more he didn’t reply.
Choices via the Place of work of Open Data may also be appealed to the native Court docket of Commonplace Pleas, then additional appealed to the Commonwealth Court docket, which hears circumstances within the Pennsylvania Judicial Heart.
AP Picture/Carolyn Kaster
Handiest 3 of 41 counties readily equipped experiences
Of the 41 counties we contacted, best Lancaster, Lebanon and Lehigh counties launched the post-mortem experiences we asked with out making an attempt to fee us the statutory charges or requiring us to enchantment the topic to the OOR.
In two of the ones counties – Lancaster and Lehigh – earlier court docket selections explicitly ordered the coroners to deposit post-mortem experiences with the prothonotary.
The proposal by no means made it out of committee.
In counties with fewer than 500,000 citizens – that’s these days 60 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties – the coroner remains to be required to deposit all post-mortem experiences and different information for the previous 12 months with the prothonotary.
That’s the regulation, whether or not coroners observe it or now not.
The Dialog U.S. reached out to the Pennsylvania State Coroners’ Affiliation to invite why coroners around the state are withholding post-mortem experiences and failing to deposit their information with the prothonotary. The Dialog U.S. additionally requested for rationalization at the affiliation’s place in regards to the unlock of post-mortem experiences in trade for the fee of charges.
The PSCA didn’t reply.
A ‘united front effort’ to forestall unlock
Inside days of receiving our request for post-mortem experiences in June 2022, Sayers contacted the Pennsylvania State Coroners’ Affiliation to invite for steerage.
“My Solicitor and I would like to discuss a united front effort to prevent these records from being released,” she added.
Garcia-Jackson’s “united front effort” didn’t be triumphant.
In December 2023, the Commonwealth Court docket dominated in Terence Keel v. Chester County Place of work of the Coroner that Garcia-Jackson had no prison foundation upon which to withhold the post-mortem experiences we asked.
We received.
The OOR now cites the case, along Hailer v. Allegheny County, when it orders coroners to show over post-mortem experiences.
Regardless of this victory in court docket, alternatively, the information we asked remained inaccessible to us in observe. The ruling affirmed the general public personality of post-mortem experiences, but it surely didn’t remark at the coroner’s failure to deposit them with the prothonotary.
Our best possibility used to be to procure the information without delay from Garcia-Jackson’s administrative center. In June 2024, she knowledgeable us via an legal professional that her administrative center would fee the overall statutory rate for every file, plus an extra duplication rate.
A minimum of 14 other people died within the custody of Chester County between 2008 and 2021. Autopsies have been carried out on 12 of them. If we need to learn about the ones circumstances, we can must pay the coroner $7,520.
That general comprises best post-mortem and toxicology experiences. Getting coroner-investigator experiences may value every other $1,200 or extra.
I additionally reached out to PSCA president and Washington County coroner Tim Warco to invite whether or not the PSCA helped to coordinate a statewide effort to forestall the discharge of post-mortem experiences to Keel and me.
He didn’t reply both.
Breaking the regulation – and public believe
In Pennsylvania, the general public’s proper to check post-mortem experiences is safe via state regulation. But many coroners don’t welcome public oversight.
The post-mortem file Sherwood asked in Centre County stays quickly sealed. The court docket will dangle a listening to at a later date to decide whether or not this seal may also be everlasting.
The court docket in Susquehanna County dominated in Sensible’s want. She received the 3 post-mortem experiences in April and has since put them to make use of in a significant investigation revealed on PennLive.
After Shaffer-Snyder quoted me $2,100 in line with my question concerning the 3 males who died in ICE custody, I requested whether or not the related post-mortem experiences have been deposited with the prothonotary, as required via regulation. She didn’t solution the query.
When coroners try to defend post-mortem experiences from scrutiny, they’re now not simply violating the general public believe. Ceaselessly, they’re additionally breaking the regulation.
This newsletter used to be made imaginable via a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
