House committee holds hearing for John Voss' coroner standards bill

District 147 Rep. John Voss’ bill to add several provisions to the office of coroner was heard by the House of Representatives Local Government Committee on Thursday morning, Feb. 20, in Jefferson City.

House Bill 1122 requires prospective coroners to provide evidence of certification for death investigations, increases the salary schedule and expands training incentives to include deputy coroners and assistants. It also modifies funding rules, allowing coroners' offices to be reimbursed for training expenses and to apply for grants for investigative tools and facilities.

“I’d like to invite you to join me in helping elevate and raise the standards of the office of coroner in the state of Missouri,” Voss said to the committee, of which he is also a member. “When I filed for office, I really didn’t know a lot about the office of coroner but, unfortunately, based on some events that have happened in my county, I have become all too intimate or familiar with the office of coroner.

“We have some really good people in the state that are helping their communities and their family members and their friends, sometimes at the most vulnerable point in their life, when they’ve just lost a loved one and they’ve got to face a different future.”

Outgoing Cape Girardeau County Coroner Wavis Jordan walks out of the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse on Nov. 21 after a motion hearing on his civil suit in Jackson.Southeast Missourian file

Voss filed a similar bill last year in the wake of former Cape Girardeau County Coroner Wavis Jordan being ousted from office on allegations of the felony of falsifying vital records and misdemeanor theft of less than $20 from a deceased person's wallet. Jordan's criminal trial is scheduled for Wednesday, March 5.

“As I became more aware of some of the situations in Cape Girardeau County, it just kept getting worse and worse,” Voss said. “I’m here before you today to try and help bring some justice to several families in Cape Girardeau County and, frankly, beyond Cape Girardeau County as well.”

Voss explained that the bill “really tries to narrow in on the death investigation side” of the position. It mandates all elected or appointed coroners, deputy coroners and assistants complete at least 20 hours of annual classroom instruction through a state or nationally accredited program covering pathology, toxicology, medicolegal sciences and best practices.

Additionally, a grant program administered by a professional association of Missouri county coroners would offer up to $5,000 to eligible coroner offices in smaller counties to support training expenses. These grants would be funded through fees collected from death certificate issuances.

According to Voss’ testimony, another bill passed in 2020 acknowledged the need for technical qualifications for the office and established the Missouri Coroner Standard and Training Commission. Despite not having enough members for a quorum for much of its existence, the commission adopted the 19 standards from the National Institute of Justice’s standards on death investigations, which were implemented into the Missouri Code of Regulations.

The 19 standards listed in the bill cover autopsies; body or remains handling and transport; chain of custody and confidentiality; ethical conduct; etiology and medical certification; evidence, inventory, property and samples; illicit drug handling; infant and child fatalities; laboratory services; mass fatalities; notification procedures; organ and tissue donation; occupational deaths; personal protective equipment; release of documents, photographs and other information; reporting of probable contagious diseases; scene investigation, documentation and safety; sample or specimen collection; and statutory and regulatory requirements.

“The languages I talked about for what those qualifications would be is identical to the work of the commission,” Voss said. “I have literally just lifted those 19 points of the National Institute of Justice medical legal death investigation, training, out of the Code of Regulations and am proposing to put that in this bill in the statute form.”

The bill allows funds collected from death certificates to be used by the Missouri Coroner Medical Examiners Association (MCMEA) to pay for coroner training, equipment and supplies. Ben Pursifull, Dent County coroner and executive board member of the MCMEA, spoke in favor of Voss’ bill, using Shannon County Coroner Sam Murphy as an example.

According to Pursifull, Murphy receives an average salary of approximately $9,000 and has an office budget of $15,000, which could hinder his ability to afford to attend the required training. Pursifull said the MCMEA grants are “one of the easiest ways to help offset any difficulty to most of the coroners throughout the state,” in this type of situation.

“He has a budget of less than $6,000, outside of his salary, to investigate every death that’s occurred down there,” Pursifull said. “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got counties that have autopsy budgets of one autopsy per year, and if you do that — and I’m not badmouthing any county commissioners — but you got county commissioners calling and saying, ‘Why are you ordering three autopsies?’ We have to, and this is the way that we thought we could better benefit every member.”

No one spoke in opposition to the bill during Thursday’s hearing.