Over two years after an initial public records request for the autopsy of an incarcerated man who died at the Allegheny County Jail, a state court ruled that Allegheny County must release the medical examiner’s full autopsy report to Brittany Hailer of the Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. In a 6 -1 decision Tuesday, the Commonwealth Court reversed a Common Pleas court ruling, granting Hailer the autopsy records for Daniel Pastorek, 63, who died in the county jail’s mental health unit in November 2020. The county argued that because Allegheny County is a second-class county (a designation based on population) it is exempt from Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law and Coroner’s Act. Commonwealth Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote in the majority opinion:  “Accepting the conclusions of the trial court would lead to the absurd result that a requester could receive autopsy records located anywhere in the Commonwealth, unless those records are located in [Allegheny] County or Philadelphia County.”

Photo Credit: Jake Dabkowski/Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism