EDITORIAL: Commission should stop humoring coroner’s office

“Ignorance of the law,” the late architect Addison Mizner noted, “excuses no man — from practicing it.” Clark County appears to have taken that observation to heart, and it’s time somebody was held accountable for the legal malpractice.

Last week, a District Court judge lambasted the county coroner’s office for its continued and willful refusal to comply with state law and previous court rulings regarding the public availability of autopsy reports. For more than three years, the coroner has fought the Review-Journal’s efforts to obtain records related to children who died while under the care of the child welfare system.

“Why the coroner’s office does not link arms with the Review-Journal and provide records freely and voluntarily is unimaginable,” Judge Jim Crockett said. “Everything demonstrates that the coroner’s office is bound and determined to circumvent and avoid Nevada’s public records act by stonewalling and obfuscating.”

Indeed, the intransigence and disregard for the law by a public entity should appall proponents of government accountability. The records are vital to shed light on whether the county’s child protection network is operating in the best interests of those it is chartered to protect. The Nevada Supreme Court early this year ruled against the coroner’s attempt to keep autopsies confidential. In defiance, the county — without an ounce of shame — still refuses to release the reports and has now spent nearly $80,000 in taxpayer money to conceal public documents from those same taxpayers.

The charade continued unabated last week. Judge Crockett previously ordered the coroner to turn over the reports in question by Nov. 30 and mandated that the county — read: taxpayers — cover the newspaper’s legal fees. But county attorneys, adept at the four corners stall, said they’re likely to appeal the matter again and sought another delay until their latest case is heard. An unamused Judge Crockett commanded that the coroner produce the records by the end of December.

“The coroner’s action,” he said, “borders on scandalous and impertinent.”

Judge Crockett got that right, but the scandal goes beyond the coroner’s office. For too long, Clark County commissioners have abetted this effort to ignore the state’s public record statutes by voting to fund the legal case seeking to quash the release of the records. To a man and woman, the seven members of the commission will publicly pronounce their allegiance to open government. They will proclaim their unwavering commitment to transparency. Yet their actions to this point expose such rhetoric as mere idle pish posh. When it came time to turn principle into action, they scurried for cover behind the forces of bureaucratic secrecy and suppression.

Nevada lawmakers last year allowed the imposition of civil penalties for purposeful violations of the state open records statutes. Judge Crockett should hold the coroner’s office in contempt if it fails to comply with his Dec. 30 deadline to turn over the autopsy reports, and he should levy fines against those complicit in this intentional effort to skirt the law.

In the meantime, the County Commission is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the coroner’s desire to file a further appeal. Sanctioning more futile legal maneuvering would be tantamount to malfeasance. It’s well past time the commissioners put an end to this colossal waste of money and showed a modicum of respect for the law and the taxpayers they profess to represent.