Autopsy Photo Hearing Today UPDATE: Several Florida newspapers and other media groups will ask a judge to overturn a year-old Florida state law restricting access to autopsy photos. Lawyers for the Orlando Sentinel, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and nearly a dozen other media organizations will ask Broward Circuit Judge Leroy Moe to strike down a 2001 law restricting public access to autopsy photos. The newspapers say the law, rushed through the Florida Legislature in the weeks after the death of NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt in last year’s Daytona 500, violates language in the Florida Constitution granting citizens access to state records. The law, passed at the urging of widow Teresa Earnhardt, requires anyone wishing to look at autopsy photos to get permission from a judge. It was challenged last year by The Independent Florida Alligator, the student newspaper at the University of Florida, but was upheld by Volusia Circuit Judge Joseph Will. That decision is now on appeal. Tuesday’s hearing will bring together many of the attorneys who battled in Will’s courtroom — including lawyers representing the state, Gov. Jeb Bush and Teresa Earnhardt. But rather than focusing on access to autopsy photos of Earnhardt, the hearing will center on a request by the Sentinel and Sun-Sentinel to look at photos of autopsies done by the Broward County medical examiner on bodies that were never identified. Other media organizations that have joined the suit include newspapers in Gainesville, Lakeland, Ocala and Sarasota owned by The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group; The Tampa Tribune and its television affiliate, WFLA-TV, Channel 8; the Society for Professional Journalists; Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; the Student Press Law Center; Florida Society of Newspaper Editors and the First Amendment Foundation.(more at Orlando Sentinel)(3-5-2002) UPDATE: After a contentious two hour hearing, a Broward circuit judge said he would rule within two or three weeks on a 2001 state law that restricts access to autopsy photos. Circuit Judge Leroy Moe repeatedly interrupted lawyers defending the law passed in the wake of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt’s death, grilling them on what was the “public necessity” for the legislature closing records guaranteed to be available under Florida’s constitution.(more at Orlando Sentinel)(3-5-2002)
