by Audrey Dutton

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Idaho lawmakers are moving forward with modest efforts to improve the state’s system for investigating deaths, following reports by ProPublica and others that identified major problems. At the same time, counties are moving to shield from public view records that ProPublica relied on in its coverage.

“Before you today is a bill that is a long time coming, and I say that because over the course of decades, since the 1950s, there have been attempts to reform our coroner system,” state Sen. Melissa Wintrow told lawmakers on Feb. 26, in a nod to ProPublica reporting last year.

The Democrat’s bill would spell out new parameters that clarify a coroner’s role. Where current law says “suspicious” deaths should be investigated, the bill lists circumstances such as a suspected drug overdose or a death on the job. It also makes clear that a law enforcement investigation doesn’t take the place of a coroner’s investigation and that the two should happen in parallel. It requires autopsies to be done by a forensic pathologist, not another kind of doctor.

The legislation crossed its first hurdle last week when it passed in the Republican-controlled Idaho Senate with broad support.

Wintrow said coroners’ investigations must be done right.

“If you’ve seen some of the news reports lately, there are families that are upset because we have not consistently been doing this across our state,” she told lawmakers, “and it is imperative that we do that.”

Last year, a report commissioned by Idaho lawmakers highlighted faults in a system of elected coroners — a system dating to the 19th century — that is marked........

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