Maryland Medical Examiners office – Decades of questionable rulings

Former Maryland Delegate Joan Pitkin was a delegate to the Maryland General Assembly for 24 years from 1979 to 2003. She represented District 23, Prince George’s County. Delegate Pitkin in 1993 and 1994 sent one requests to the  Attorney General of MD and to the U.S. Attorney for MD calling for an external investigation into the Medical Examiners office in 1993 and 1994 in relation to questionable suicide rulings. In addition Delegate Pitkin also requested an investigation into Keith’s death and questioned the findings in 1994. Both documents are below. As you can see, Dr. Fowler was not where the problems started in the Medical Examiners office. As I pointed out in an early post in relation to the death investigation of Anton Black, the MD ME office followed the same script that was given in the death of Keith https://www.thekeithwarrenjusticesite.com/2021/04/25/maryland-medical-examiners-office-pattern-of-bias/ .

The Maryland Medical Examiner’s office under the direction of Dr. John E. Smialek (1986-2001) played by their own set of rules. There were so many complaints concerning the ME office specifically in relation to the determination of death by “suicide” that Maryland Delegate Joan Pitkin (1979-2003) sponsored a bill that eventually passed into law. Prior to the passing of HB565 in the 1992 session the Medical Examiners ruling was final. HB565 set up a system of appeals for those who disagreed with the Medical Examiners findings. Delegate Pitkin also brought to light other improprieties of the ME’s office. Unfortunately for the Warren family, the law was retro back to May 1987, 10months after the death of Keith Warren. So you see the systematic injustice experienced by my mom was obviously not just one isolated case but a well-documented and ongoing issue on the level of Maryland State and Local government.

In short the Maryland ME’s office has a long history of questionable rulings directly related to suicides going back to the 90’s.