Reporting Highlights
- A long time of Inaction: Regardless of 70 years of warnings about flaws in Idaho’s system of elected coroners, state lawmakers have repeatedly did not undertake main modifications.
- Reform Plans: A state subcommittee this yr started discussing methods to enhance the system however has not made any suggestions.
- What Coroners Say: On a 2025 state survey and in interviews, coroners have provided up concrete options starting from extra post-mortem funding to stricter coaching necessities.
These highlights had been written by the reporters and editors who labored on this story.
Since final yr, ProPublica has been reporting on the troubled system for loss of life investigations in Idaho, the place an individual’s reason for loss of life is set by elected coroners with no oversight or state help and, typically, little coaching or schooling.
The failures documented by ProPublica left mother and father with out solutions in their child’s sudden loss of life and let clues vanish within the loss of life of a lady whose household suspected foul play by her husband, a person later charged with killing his subsequent spouse.
The Idaho Workplace of Efficiency Evaluations in January despatched the state’s coroners a proper survey about their work, drawing responses from simply over half. The workplace informed coroners that it wouldn’t connect names to their responses when it made the survey outcomes public, and a few gave unvarnished critiques.
“The coroner system in Idaho is damaged and a joke,” one wrote.
In addition they took the chance to plead for assist, for modifications they imagine may remodel Idaho into a spot the place loss of life investigations persistently meet nationwide requirements.
Idaho coroners are elected to an workplace underneath county authorities management and funded by county budgets. Idaho politics have historically held the independence of native authorities as sacrosanct. This yr’s state survey — and subsequent interviews by ProPublica — revealed a twist: Many coroners imagine the state’s hands-off method is outdated and dangerous, making the standard of an individual’s loss of life investigation differ primarily based on the county.
These native officers need the state to become involved, and so they need it badly.
Jimmy Roberts of Bingham County, an agricultural space in japanese Idaho, is one such coroner. He labored with two interns in his workplace to draft a 118-page white paper that highlighted failure factors in Idaho’s coroner system and described how states like Indiana and Arkansas addressed the identical issues. In Indiana, as in Idaho, the county coroner is a constitutional elected workplace. However coroners in Indiana are topic to a set of state legal guidelines that spell out what they have to do.
The insurance policies that Roberts highlighted from these states embrace making a state coaching council for coroners, defining in legislation which instances should be autopsied, elevating cash for coroners by charges on loss of life certificates or paying for toxicology prices by alcohol taxes, and giving coroners “first responder” standing to allow them to entry psychological well being look after themselves and get a provide of naloxone for reviving individuals who overdose.
Nonetheless, it’s unclear whether or not concepts like these will acquire traction in Idaho after almost 70 years of warnings and inaction on coroners.
Gov. Brad Little’s legal justice fee has begun to try the coroner system, by way of a subcommittee it created this yr that features coroners, the state police forensics lab director, a state legislator and others — however no county commissioners have joined but, leaving the group with out enter from the individuals who management coroner budgets.
The subcommittee thus far has drawn up a listing of issues and brainstormed options — none of which it has endorsed — equivalent to a state fund to assist pay for autopsies, a forensic middle in japanese Idaho to ramp up post-mortem capability or mandating autopsies in some baby deaths.
Coroners will not be united in how one can make the system higher and what it is going to take to get there.
Roberts, the Bingham County coroner, despatched his 118-page report back to fellow coroners and state legislators by e-mail in October. However Roberts informed ProPublica his provide to assist the leaders of the Idaho State Affiliation of County Coroners work on reform was “met with silence.”
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Natalie Behring for ProPublica
Torey Danner, the affiliation’s president and a member of the governor’s subcommittee finding out the difficulty, informed ProPublica that his focus this yr is on “low-hanging fruit” somewhat than main systemic modifications. Requested about approaches which have gotten leads to different states, he mentioned he needs to overview the foundation causes of Idaho’s issues earlier than committing to any particular reform concepts, in order that Idaho doesn’t unintentionally implement “Band-Support” options in haste.
Danner mentioned he didn’t see Roberts’ 118-page report come by his e-mail inbox in October however plans to learn it after being contacted by ProPublica. He has not deeply studied the reforms in different states.
“I haven’t taken the time as a result of I haven’t had the time,” mentioned Danner, one of many few coroners in Idaho to carry the job full time. “I imply, I’m nonetheless making an attempt to do that and run my workplace, too.”
Listed here are 5 concrete steps different Idaho coroners have advised.
1. Extra autopsies
Idaho has among the many lowest post-mortem charges within the U.S., with even worse rankings for autopsies in homicides and unexplained baby deaths — and cash is an element. About 1 in 4 coroner’s workplaces answering this yr’s survey mentioned their budgets have an effect on their capacity to do autopsies.
Madison County Coroner Sam Butikofer informed ProPublica that when he took workplace in 2019, the county’s finances for grooming snowmobile trails was bigger than the coroner’s. (County finances information affirm that.)
Beneath Idaho’s present setup, every county units an annual finances for its coroner’s workplace that estimates what number of autopsies the coroner should order within the coming yr. An post-mortem in most elements of Idaho prices not less than $2,300. Small counties in Idaho finances for lower than a dozen a yr, and a backcountry aircraft crash, just a few unwitnessed deaths on the river, a spate of sudden toddler deaths or the uncommon a number of murder can shortly eat up the cash that was put aside.
Missing the form of funding different states use to assist cowl the price of autopsies, Idaho coroners should resolve between forgoing autopsies or blowing the finances and having to justify it to a board of county commissioners made up of elected laypeople.
“We should be doing extra autopsies, thus we want extra money to take action,” one coroner informed the Idaho Workplace of Efficiency Evaluations in its survey.
(Idaho counties and the state coroners affiliation 20 years in the past opposed a mandate for coroners to do autopsies in sudden toddler deaths, citing price. County commissioners haven’t weighed on this yr as a result of there are not any particular reforms to answer but, in response to the Idaho Affiliation of Counties.)
As famous in a earlier report by the state workplace and in ProPublica’s reporting, different states — together with Idaho’s neighbors Washington and Wyoming — assist their native coroners pay for autopsies or the journey required to get them finished.
With out a state health worker’s workplace, Idaho has no centralized setup for forensic pathologists to do autopsies. So most county coroners have contracts with the state’s largest county, Ada, the place Boise is positioned. For the counties in Idaho’s japanese and northern reaches, the coroner has to plan for an all-day or in a single day journey to the Boise space and the fuel and resort to go along with it.
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First picture: Katherine Jones/Idaho Statesman. Second picture: Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman.
Ada County is absolutely booked with its present workload of autopsies for dozens of Idaho counties. It has just some forensic pathologists on employees. Its nationwide accreditations restrict what number of autopsies every of these pathologists can do — a rule that’s designed to assist preserve the medical doctors from being overworked and error-prone however causes backlogs when there’s an excessive amount of demand.
Coroners undertook a marketing campaign final yr to open a forensic middle in japanese Idaho, as a form of co-op with a number of distant, rural counties. The plan fell aside when native commissioners bought spooked by the associated fee. Forensic pathologists, the one individuals who can carry out the autopsies, are in excessive demand; it takes a wage of about $350,000 to lure one to Idaho.
“The state of Idaho must construct an japanese Idaho forensic middle and cease losing money and time by making an attempt to have a county construct this required facility,” one individual wrote in response to the state’s coroner survey.
2. Increased pay
No less than seven coroners in Idaho’s 44 counties have an annual wage under $10,000, in response to an annual survey by the Idaho Affiliation of Counties and ProPublica’s overview of county budgets. One other 12 coroners’ salaries are between $10,000 and $20,000 a yr.
That’s not sufficient to stay on, so almost all Idaho coroners both are retired from a earlier profession or have one other job. Their ranks embrace medics, nurses and nurse practitioners, a doctor, a library director, an lawyer, 11 funeral residence homeowners or staff, and not less than three with greater than two jobs.
Idaho County Coroner Cody Funke informed ProPublica in July that workplaces like his want full-time employees. Proper now, he has to answer deaths whereas he’s in the course of a workday at his major job, which is with the state jail system.
The county affiliation’s annual survey exhibits that not less than eight county coroners don’t have any deputy on employees to take over when the elected coroner can’t reply a name or go to a loss of life scene.
“Any assist could be enormously appreciated however my best drawback is low wages making it not possible to recruit deputies and any alternative for the elected officers,” one coroner informed the state’s survey takers.
One other coroner who did have a deputy wrote, “My Deputy Coroner works one (1) day a month! I can not take time without work with solely in the future a month protection.”
3. Workplace area
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Liesbeth Powers for ProPublica
Half of the coroners who responded to this yr’s survey mentioned they didn’t do their coroner work in a county-owned workplace. Some did it in funeral houses or mortuaries. Some did it in different sorts of full-time non-public workplaces. Six coroners, although, mentioned they did most of their work in their very own houses.
Though the survey didn’t break down sorts of venues coroners used for paperwork versus analyzing our bodies, the shortage of devoted and safe workspace poses an issue for each duties.
Few Idaho counties have a county morgue with coolers and storage for our bodies awaiting post-mortem, testing or additional examination. Coroners in rural areas typically flip to an area funeral residence or the regional hospital.
This apply can imperil a legal prosecution, coroners informed ProPublica, as a result of the physique — an important piece of proof — isn’t secured by all phases of an investigation.
With out a devoted examination room or storage for our bodies, “we’re not capable of preserve chain of custody and funeral residence employees are witness to examination particulars of instances that should have a excessive degree of confidentiality,” wrote Roberts, the Bingham County coroner, in his response to the state coroner survey.
Within the survey, 59% of respondents mentioned they retailer lifeless our bodies in a spot that’s open to individuals exterior the coroner’s workplace. Three coroners had postmortem samples, equivalent to blood or fluids ready for a toxicology lab take a look at, saved in a “non-public residence,” and one coroner was storing unidentified or unclaimed human stays there.
Butikofer, the coroner in Madison County, had no workplace when he began the job. He’s requested his county commissioners for not less than the previous 5 years to provide him a workspace with refrigerated and secured storage and a spot to satisfy with households, in response to public assembly minutes. The county’s grasp plan would fulfill that request — with building being full six to 10 years from now. In the meantime, Butikofer has labored out of a truck, a card desk in his household residence, the native hospital’s morgue and a short lived area within the county courthouse.
“I hear rumors that the state has cash,” Butikofer mentioned in reference to Idaho’s long-running string of finances surpluses and money reserves. “I’m only one little minnow within the pond going, ‘Hey, how ’bout a few of that, you already know, for the coroner system?’”
The governor early this yr mentioned he supported extra assets to assist coroners do their jobs. However in mid-August, with main tax cuts hitting and state revenues dropping, the governor responded by ordering spending cuts and different austerity measures — an indication that Idaho will likely be even tighter with cash than common within the coming yr.
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Natalie Behring for ProPublica
4. Consistency statewide
One of many state survey respondents pitched an thought for holding all Idaho coroners to at least one normal.
“There must be a state run and state funded coroner system with a head coroner elected by the residents. The highest coroner would create a standardized investigation system” with protocols for coroners to comply with, the nameless respondent wrote.
Coroners interviewed by ProPublica have pointed to the system utilized by neighboring Montana: a hybrid coroner-and-medical examiner setup, coordinated by a coroner liaison. Montana and its counties didn’t need to bootstrap that place financially; it bought funding by a federal grant from the Nationwide Institute of Justice.
Idaho’s disjointed system leaves it as much as every coroner to resolve how they do their job. The Legislature this yr clarified which sorts of deaths coroners should examine, but it surely didn’t make clear what “examine” means. Can coroners study the room the place the individual died? Get medical information to discover a analysis which may clarify the loss of life? Order a blood take a look at to search for fentanyl? Order an post-mortem?
Different states make it clearer.
Arkansas state code expressly provides coroners subpoena energy and assured entry to a loss of life scene.
Legal guidelines in states together with Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania direct coroners to order an post-mortem in sure sorts of deaths.
Wyoming’s coroner requirements board spells out what a loss of life investigation ought to embrace: pictures, a scene investigation, an examination of the skin of the individual’s physique, blood or tissue samples to check for poisonous substances, a list of any proof or property or medicines the coroner discovered, and, lastly, a DNA pattern.
5. Extra coaching
After dwelling in an Idaho county for a yr, any U.S. citizen 21 or older can turn into the county coroner. There’s no license or certification wanted.
When coroners take workplace, they’ve one yr to attend “coroner’s faculty,” adopted by 24 hours of coroner schooling each two years. However there’s no enforcement mechanism for that legislation. No less than three different Mountain West states which have coroners — Colorado, Montana and Wyoming — have penalties for not getting educated: suspended pay, forfeiture of the workplace or a misdemeanor cost.
ProPublica discovered final yr that 1 in 4 Idaho coroners repeatedly fell in need of coaching necessities. Funke, the Idaho County coroner, exceeded the necessities and sought coaching on his personal earlier than taking workplace, however he informed ProPublica he nonetheless felt underprepared. Funke, in his second yr on the job, signed off on cremation of a lady primarily based on her husband’s phrase she died of Parkinson’s, solely to study 5 years later the person was indicted within the homicide of his subsequent spouse in Texas.
With a decade extra expertise, Funke mentioned he would do issues in another way now. Nationwide consultants informed ProPublica that Funke ought to have gone to the loss of life scene and confirmed a Parkinson’s analysis earlier than he dominated the Idaho County loss of life pure. Funke mentioned extra needs to be finished to organize coroners for the job.
Idaho legislation doesn’t outline what a coroner should show they know earlier than taking cost of loss of life investigations of their county. No less than two different states have a better bar with regards to deputy coroners, who typically do the principle work. Indiana requires deputy coroners to cross a written take a look at and full an externship. Arkansas requires deputy coroners to finish a coaching curriculum and switch in a certificates that proves they did it. Arkansas legislation additionally established a separate wage tier for coroners who full the coaching.
When Idaho lawmakers made minor revisions to the state’s coroner legislation this yr, they required coaching to be “authorized by a nationally acknowledged certifying physique.” However lawmakers did nothing to deal with the shortage of penalties for coroners who skip these lessons.
The Idaho efficiency analysis workplace mentioned two coroners it surveyed this yr “urged the Idaho Legislature to step in with stronger management, enforceable coaching requirements, and a sustainable funding mannequin to make sure coroners throughout the state can successfully carry out their duties.”
