Getting Your Hands on Pennsylvania Autopsy Records
It turns out autopsy reports in Pennsylvania are generally public records, but the process of actually getting one is where things get messy. The Right-to-Know Law covers them, and the Medical Examiner's office that performed the autopsy is the custodian. But "generally public" doesn't mean "easy to get." You need to file a formal Right-to-Know request, and the office you're dealing with might not be exactly helpful about it. The baseline answer is yes. Under Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law (Act 3 of 2008, as amended), autopsy reports prepared by a medical examiner's office are presumptively open to the public. However, certain personal identifying information — things like the decedent's social security number, home address, or pre-existing medical conditions that aren't relevant to the cause and manner of death — can be redacted. That's standard. What trips people up is that some offices draw the line much further than they should. I dealt with a situation a while back where a county medical examiner's office denied a straightforward request for an autopsy report, claiming it was part of an "ongoing law enforcement investigation." The case had been closed for fourteen months. The statute of limitations on any related criminal matter had already expired. The office was just using the investigation exemption as a default shield because it was easier than actually reviewing the record. I appealed through the Office of Open Records, and they ordered the report released with only the standard redactions. It took about nine weeks total. Most people would have just accepted the denial and moved on.
Here's how to actually do it without losing your patience. You file through the Right-to-Know Online Portal at righttoknow.pa.gov. Pick the correct medical examiner's office for the county where the autopsy was performed. You'll need the decedent's full name, date of death, and ideally the case or file number if you have it. The filing fee is zero for standard photocopying, though they can charge for certified copies at their posted rate — usually around twenty dollars per page. The office has five business days to respond. They can extend once for another five days if they claim unusual circumstances. If they deny it, the denial letter should cite the specific exemption they're relying on. That's your paper trail for an appeal. File the appeal with the Office of Open Records within thirty days of the denial. Their entire appeal process is free and runs online. You don't need a lawyer for most of these. The main pitfall people run into is submitting a request to the wrong office. Pennsylvania has a patchwork system. Some counties have a medical examiner, some have a coroner, and a few have both operating simultaneously in different jurisdictions. Coroner records fall under a slightly different statutory framework and can be harder to access. Before you file anything, check which office actually conducted the autopsy. The death certificate will list it, or you can call the county prothonotary's office and ask. Sending your request to the wrong custodian just starts the clock on a transfer you didn't need.
Another thing that isn't obvious: the Office of Open Records has published guidance specifically on medical examiner records. OOR Guidance 2021-03 clarifies that the law enforcement investigatory purpose exemption cannot be applied broadly to all autopsy records. It has to be tied to a specific, identifiable investigation that would be harmed by disclosure. Blanket denials get reversed. But you won't know that unless you push the appeal. The system is designed so that most requests die at the first denial — people assume they don't have recourse and walk away. If you're requesting the report for litigation purposes, keep in mind that the OOR appeal process is an administrative remedy, not a court proceeding. Some attorneys try to use the OOR route instead of subpoenaing the record directly because it's faster and cheaper. That works fine for a basic copy. But if you need deposition access, discovery exchanges, or specific pages that the medical examiner's office has marked as sealed, a subpoena from the relevant court is the only move that will force compliance. No amount of OOR appeals will override a court order. There's also a practical bottleneck worth knowing about. Pennsylvania medical examiner offices are understaffed and backlogged. Even when a request is clearly valid, turnaround times routinely stretch past the statutory five days. I've seen legitimate requests sit for three to four weeks before anyone even acknowledged receipt. This isn't the agency being difficult — it's usually just triage between current caseload and historical record requests. Patience matters more than anything else in this process.
Get the Full Details
If you hit a wall and the OOR appeal doesn't go your way, your next option is judicial review in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. That's where it gets expensive and slow, so treat it as a last resort. Most disputes get resolved at the OOR level if you stick with it. Don't let a first denial discourage you. The law is on your side even when the people processing the requests act like it isn't.
