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Evans leads effort on med. examiner
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| By: ADAM NORTHAM, DAILY LEADER Staff Writer |
March 27, 2008 |
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Funding for the state medical examiner's office, approved in a Department of Public Safety appropriations bill Wednesday by the Mississippi House of Representatives, could be cut if the office does not hire a medical examiner certified by the American Board of Pathology.
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The bill, Senate Bill 3124, passed the House on a vote of 74-47 after Rep. Bob Evans, D-Monticello, proposed an amendment requiring the medical examiner's office to seek a certified examiner. With the changes, differences between the two chambers' versions will have to be worked out in conference.
"State law requires that we have a board-certified medical examiner and, unfortunately, we haven't had one for more than 10 years," Evans said Wednesday. "This gets specifically into my practicing of law - that's why I was on it today and why I will continue to beat that drum."
Evans said that around 90 percent of autopsies done in the state for criminal deaths - one of the state medical examiner's chief duties - are performed by Dr. Steven Hayne, a Brandon pathologist who has been filling in the long-vacant post of state medical examiner for many years. But, Evans said, Hayne is not certified by the American Board of Pathology, and his work for the state is done outside of statute requirements.
"Unfortunately, Dr. Hayne has had some problems in the legal community because of his lack of credentials," Evans said. "The Criminal Defense bar in Mississippi has been doing a lot of research on Hayne. There has been many problems with him in court - questions about his credibility and bona fides."
Evans discussed one incident involving Hayne and his involvement in a murder case against Tyler Edmonds. Edmonds, then 13 years old, was convicted of murdering his brother-in-law and sentenced to life without possibility of parole after Hayne testified that the fatal bullet was fired by two fingers on the trigger - Edmonds being an assistant murderer.
"You don't have to be a forensic pathologist, you don't even have to be of average intelligence to know that's bogus science," Evans said. "There's no way you could look at a bullet hole and conclude how many fingers pulled the trigger. That's patently ridiculous."
On May 10, 2007, the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Edmonds' conviction by a vote of 8 to 1.
Evans said he has also dealt with Hayne in his own trials before.
"I was involved in a case where a body was skeletonized - I mean that's all that was left from the waist up was bone - and Hayne testified in court that the person had died as a result of strangulation," Evans recounted. "I've had forensic pathologists - board certified pathologists - tell me that was ridiculous. The case ended in acquittal."
Evans said instances such as these were the reasons why he, along with Rep. Brandon Jones, D-Pascagoula, sought to amend the bill to require the state medical examiner's office to hire a board-certified examiner. Evans said that if the state were going to fund the office, then a full-time examiner should be in place and that examiner should be in full compliance with state law.
"Since we do have the office and we're funding it, we ought to use it," Evans said. "We should not be having to depend on someone like Dr. Hayne, who is not board-certified, doing these autopsies on which people's freedom - and sometimes their lives - depend."
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©The Daily Leader 2009
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