Independent journalist Derek Sherwood submitted a records request in Centre County, Pennsylvania, in January 2026. He requested an autopsy report related to a 1987 cold case that he was researching for a book project. After Coroner Scott Sayers denied the request, Sherwood successfully appealed to the Office of Open Records, or OOR, a state agency responsible for adjudicating Right-To-Know Law disputes.

But Sayers still refused to release the report.

On May 14, the day before he was legally required to comply with the OOR’s decision, Sayers obtained a temporary court injunction that shielded the autopsy report from release.

Around the same time, PennLive reporter Jenna Wise requested three autopsy reports related to a 2025 crime spree from Susquehanna County Coroner Jessica Chiaramonte. Like Sayers, Chiaramonte also denied the request and then filed motions with the Court of Common Pleas to seal the reports.

And when I contacted Clearfield County Coroner Kim Shaffer-Snyder in May to request autopsy reports for three men who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, I was quoted US$2,100 for a short stack of printed pages.

These experiences reflect a wider pattern. In counties across Pennsylvania, coroners routinely refuse to make autopsy reports and other records available to members of the public.

Coroners’ reasons for this are inconsistent and often unclear. Sometimes they say that releasing autopsy reports would jeopardize ongoing law enforcement activities. Sometimes they cite medical privacy standards that do not apply to autopsy reports. And sometimes they don’t provide any reasoning at all.

When coroners do agree to release their records, they charge as much as $700 per case. These fees place autopsy reports out of reach for most requesters, including journalists and researchers like me.

I’m a postdoctoral fellow studying the impacts of mass incarceration on medicine and public health. I’m also a freelance reporter who uses public records to understand what goes on behind the walls of prisons and jails.

In 2022 I partnered with colleague Terence Keel, a professor of human biology and society, to systematically request autopsy reports related to hundreds of deaths in prisons and jails across Pennsylvania.

We submitted requests in over three dozen counties. Then we waited. And waited.

Our plan was to conduct a rigorous statewide study of deaths in custody. Instead, we discovered that autopsy reports are not nearly as public in practice as Pennsylvania law requires.

What PA state law requires

The Pennsylvania County Code provides two pathways through which members of the public can obtain autopsy reports and other coroners records.

First, a requester can obtain them directly from the coroner through the payment of statutory fees. This is the only option available if a requester wants an autopsy report that was produced during the current calendar year.

In most places, however, these fees do not apply to older reports. In all counties with fewer than 500,000 residents, the law requires coroners to deposit the past year’s records with the county prothonotary at the beginning of each new year. The prothonotary is an independent elected official who serves as a designated record-keeper, among other duties.

Once in the prothonotary’s custody, all coroners records are to be made available “for the inspection of interested members of the public” – no fees required. This is the second way a requester can obtain an autopsy report in Pennsylvania.

But the state’s largest jurisdictions, including Philadelphia collar counties such as Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware, are exempt from this requirement. Requesters in those counties must pay the statutory fees no matter how old the requested autopsy report may be.

Due to carve-outs like this, autopsy reports in the counties with the most jail deaths are least accessible to public review.

Philadelphia and Allegheny counties

Philadelphia County and Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, are the only jurisdictions in Pennsylvania to have a chief medical examiner. Unlike a coroner, who is typically elected by........

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