The father of Robert Brooks, the incarcerated man beaten to death by former officers convicted of murder, is joining a push for funding in the budget to create a new state entity that would perform independent autopsies of people behind bars. But counties are fighting the proposal.
The Assembly included a proposal in its one-house budget to give the state Commission of Correction jurisdiction when an incarcerated person dies in the state – removing that power from local county coroners and medical examiners. It earmarks $3.7 million to create a new Office of the Chief Medical Examiner within the commission, which would be independent of the state Department of Corrections & Community Supervision. And advocates are pushing for its inclusion in the budget as negotiations drag on now 10 days past the deadline.
Brooks’ father, Robert Ricks, said the office is needed to maintain transparency and accountability within state facilities, and that his son’s 2024 killing by corrections officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, which was captured on officers’ body camera footage, shows prison guards have beaten people to death in the past without an independent investigation or accurate record of what took place…