D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray says he will try to get back the medical examiner’s accreditation after it was stripped by the national organization that gives it out.
“We’ll look at this and work with this NAME, the National Association of Medical Examiners, that accredits,” Gray said Thursday on TBD’s “NewsTalk.”
The Washington Examiner reported Wednesday night that the District’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was stripped of its provisional accreditation in March because Chief Medical Examiner Marie Pierre-Louis is not board-certified. The national association had warned the office that it might lose the accreditation if it didn’t find a chief who was board-certified.
On Thursday, federal prosecutors played down the danger the loss of the accreditation represents to putting criminals behind bars.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office does not expect these developments to have any direct impact on our cases or to affect us legally,” a U.S. attorney spokesman said. “Beyond that, the office has no further comment at this time.”
But defense attorneys said they will likely use the medical examiner’s accreditation issues to poke holes in evidence presented by the government.
“Whether it affects the results or not, it does give you pause in whether you can have confidence in those results,” defense attorney Bryan Brown said. “The medical examiner’s office is meant to provide an independent analysis based on science, but if the scientific community isn’t accrediting the office, then you have to wonder if the medical examiner is still in the position to give the scientific community’s stamp of approval on the evidence it presents.”
Meanwhile, medical examiner spokeswoman Beverly Fields said the office is trying to determine why NAME stripped the provisional accreditation after the agency received a positive review from an association inspector.
The review recommends an extension of the provisional accreditation and says “the current chief should remain and at the end of her tenure, any new chief should have certification.” Pierre-Louis’ term ends in 2013. NAME did not respond to requests for comment.
“It’s anyone’s guess why they didn’t continue it,” Fields said.
