For Immediate Release
January 21, 2005
Please Contact: Michael Bloom, 617-722-1650

Statement of Senator Barrios on Appointment of New Chief Medical Examiner

“For too long the effective prosecution of criminal cases has been hampered by a Chief Medical Examiner’s Office without the Chief,” said Senator Jarrett T. Barrios, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Public Safety. “When lapses occurred in early 2003 the Governor acted about as fast as a horse stuck in mud, taking more than six months to initiate the replacement of the last Chief Medical Examiner who resigned in scandal.  Finally, a year later I’m hopeful the appointment of Dr. Mark Flomenbaum will refocus the office on its mission of serving the people of Massachusetts.”

In December 2003 Barrios held a State House hearing with Senator Thomas M. McGee, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Criminal Justice, which forced the Governor to concede that after more than six months without a leader it had not yet begun the legal process of hiring a new Chief Medical Examiner. The hearing also brought to light a federal investigation into the Office’s mishandling of federal grants and serious lapses in how evidence was handled in criminal cases.

“When crisis and scandal first struck the Medical Examiner’s Office in April 2003, instead of moving to reform the agency Governor Romney instead choose the status quo, blindly re-appointing the embattled Dr. Evans,” Barrios continued. “In January 2004, under pressure from the Legislature the Governor finally agreed to revive the Commission on Medicolegal Investigation to hire a new Chief Medical Examiner. In naming Dr. Flomenbaum, let’s hope the almost two years of waiting was worth it.”

 

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