Fernando Freyre, Burnley's attorney, declined to comment on the case. But court documents show that the defense is attacking the adequacy of the coroner's investigation. Not enough brain-tissue samples were taken or preserved to rule out infection, Burnley's team contends. The bruising wasn't subjected to the kind of testing that would help determine if it occurred at the time of the fatal injury or earlier, as Burnley claims. The case is shaping up as a test of whether anything less than a truly exhaustive, by-the-book death investigation, five-hour autopsy and all, will suffice in suspected abuse situations.
Similar issues involving the preservation of evidence have surfaced in another case of suspected abuse: the death of a six-month-old boy in Westminster last February. The autopsy examination found head contusions and a subdural hematoma. The suspect, 22-year-old Justin Taylor, pleaded not guilty to child abuse resulting in death. The case against him includes an alleged admission to police that he'd dropped the "pissed off" boy on his head after he tried to kick Taylor "in the balls." But recently, in a letter to Taylor's pubic defenders, a prosecutor acknowledged that the decedent's brain had been stored in an "unconventional" manner, in a heat-sealed pouch, by someone in the Adams County Coroner's Office. The heat altered the shape and consistency of the tissue and made analysis of the injuries more difficult; it's not clear at this point how much damage the heat-sealing did to the prosecution's case, or Taylor's ability to mount a defense.
Adams County Coroner James Hibbard defends his tough calls.
Jaime Brown believes her daughter's death didn't get the investigation it deserved.
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Scott Evans, head of the Brighton division of the state public defender's office, declines to comment on the Taylor case. But he says his office has had trouble getting documents from Hibbard's office for years. "The autopsy report was the only thing we were getting," he says. "There were a lot of other materials in their files, including reports from other agencies they would consult and interviews with witnesses. They were not passing the copies on to the DA, who has to forward everything to us."
Hibbard says he only recently learned about the disclosure problem, which he blames on the district attorney's office: "We were sending compact discs to the district attorney's office, and we found out they were sitting in someone's drawer. I can tell you this, when it leaves this office now, I make someone from the DA's office sign for it, because I'm not going to be the bad guy anymore. Now that I know what they weren't getting, I make sure they do get it and get it through the proper channels."
The district attorney and the public defender don't agree about much, but they both disagree with Hibbard's explanation. "Sometimes there are issues getting reports from the coroner's office in a timely way, but there isn't a systemic problem," Quick says. "The idea that discs are getting dumped in a desk drawer, that's not true at all."
Evans says the situation only improved recently, after months of court battles and subpoenas dispatched to the coroner's office. "There were just too many cases where we weren't getting the materials for the DA to be the source of the problem," he says. "The prosecutors would stand up in court and say they hadn't received it, either. The last couple of cases, I've been receiving the materials through the DA's office, so the coroner is getting some of it to them. I just don't know whether it's all of it or not. We don't know what's been lost or damaged or screwed up. We just don't know."
Hibbard can be passionate on the subject of his independence. As an elected coroner, he isn't subject to what police, doctors, lawyers or journalists want the case to be about. It is what he decides it is. "I don't speak for anybody but the decedent," he says.
Yet he clearly speaks louder for some decedents than others. Jaime Brown wishes someone in Hibbard's office had spoken up for her daughter Abigail.
"I know I have a different attachment — it's my child," she says. "To them, it was just another body."
