LAS VEGAS: Clark County Nevada District Court Judge Jim Crockett ruled on Sept. 28 that the coroner’s office cannot keep death records secret, because nothing in Nevada law exempts autopsies from public review.
That decision came about prior to the Oct. 1 Las Vegas massacre that left 58 people dead and over 500 injured after Stephen Paddock reportedly opened fire on a music festival from his suite at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
We still do not know the manner and cause of Paddock’s death. That has not been released by the coroner’s office and neither has the estimated time of death.
Release the records
The Las Vegas Review-Journal had filed a lawsuit in July after the Clark County Coroner’s Office refused to release coroner’s reports in other deaths.
The coroner considers the coroner autopsy report, coroner medical examination report, toxicology report and the coroner investigation report, to be confidential and not for public record.
Attorneys for the LVRJ argued that Nevada’s Public Records Act requires that the government must release the documents.
The Clark County District Attorney’s Office who represented the coroner argued that the records could be withheld and or redacted by officials based on a 1982 attorney general’s decision.
After the judge’s ruling, Keith Moyer, the editor in chief of the LVRJ said, “Thursday’s ruling makes it clear again that government records are presumed to be open and cannot be hidden from scrutiny because bureaucrats want the public kept in the dark. Governments must follow the law. The Review-Journal will aggressively litigate baseless refusals to release public records. And, as we did Thursday, we’ll win.”
Crockett said the attorney general’s opinion does not overrule laws that say all records are public unless there is a specific exemption.
Clark County will appeal
On Tuesday the Clark County Commission voted to appeal Crocket’s decision. Clark County Coroner, John Fudenberg requested the appeal.
The LVRJ managing editor Glenn Cook said, “Autopsy reports are public records across the country to ensure accountability in investigations.”
Local and national media file petitions
On Nov. 2 petitions for release of records pertaining to Stephen Paddock and the October 1 massacre were filed in US District Court, District of Nevada and Clark County District Court by attorneys representing the Las Vegas-Review Journal, ABC, CNN, KSNV-TV Las Vegas, The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Associated Press.
The US District Court petition is to unseal all the federal affidavit for search warrant applications and associated judicial records. An affidavit for search warrant contains the probable cause necessary for a federal judge to issue any search warrant.
A Clark County District Court petition requested the unsealing of 14 affidavit for search warrants and transcripts of oral statements of probable cause.
A second CCDC petition requests the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department allow the inspection of all recordings made by police-worn body cameras on the night of October 1, 2017, recordings of 911 calls received relating to the shooting incident at the Mandalay Bay, police dispatch calls, evidence logs, hotel surveillance video, interview reports and anything else relating to the shooting investigation.
Never forget those killed and injured in the worst mass shooting in US history that occurred in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 1, 2017. It should never have happened.
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