The Baltimore Banner sues Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner over denial of public records

The Baltimore Banner on Thursday sued the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, alleging that the agency is improperly denying access to key portions of autopsy reports that are public records under state law — despite providing these documents in the past. For more than three months, reporters from The Banner have been seeking autopsy records for reporting about the opioid epidemic in Maryland. But the medical examiner’s office has “frustrated the letter and the spirit of the law,” the lawsuit asserts, by arbitrarily refusing to turn over critical portions of these documents — including pages that document toxicological findings and contain information about the age, race and gender of people who fatally overdosed, and the locations where they were found.