Lancaster County, backing coroner’s position, hires private lawyers for suit block access to public records

• By Jack Panyard/LNP | LancasterOnline

Lancaster County is taking LNP | LancasterOnline to court in an attempt to block access to information the state Office of Open Records and the courts have repeatedly deemed to be public record.

The county argues that the coroner’s office has the right to conceal the identities of minors whose deaths it investigates despite state law requiring the disclosure of name, causes and manners of death regardless of age.

Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law makes all state and local government agency records accessible to the public unless otherwise stated. While the law allows for an exception to some coroner records, it also states, “This exception shall not limit the reporting of the name of the deceased individual and the cause and manner of death.”

The county is specifically appealing a December ruling by the state Office of Open Records ordering the coroner to publicly disclose the name of a 3-year-old boy who died in an accidental shooting in southern Lancaster County in the fall.

But the county is arguing more broadly that the names of any minor whose death is investigated by the coroner, an elected official whose government office is taxpayer funded, should be shielded from the public.

“Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly held autopsy records are open for public access,” said Paula Knudsen Burke, the Pennsylvania staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “The Lancaster County coroner’s appeal is puzzling. … Why should taxpayers have to foot the bill when courts have repeatedly held these are public records?”

The attorneys handling the appeal for the county are Kevin J. McKeon and Melissa A. Chapaska of the private firm Hawke McKeon & Sniscak in Harrisburg.

Courts favor disclosure

OOR has ruled over the years that the names of deceased persons, including minors, are a public record. Yet county Coroner Dr. Stephen G. Diamantoni has repeatedly declined to provide the information to news media, claiming his office is not required to disclose the information and that the identities of minors who die as a result of violence or trauma should be private.

He did so again in late December regarding the identity of an 11-year-old Chester County girl who died in a Christmas Eve automobile accident in Salisbury Township.

Yet the coroner’s office has not objected to releasing minors’ names in the past. In 2023, Diamantoni’s office released the name of an 11-year-old who was hit by a car in Drumore Township and a 12-year-old killed in a storm in Providence Township.

There are multiple cases in the state that set a legal precedent for name releases, such as Michael Jones and the Observer-Reporter v. Fayette County and James Halpin and the Citizen’s Voice v. Monroe County Coroner’s Office. In both cases, the counties sought unsuccessfully to conceal the names of minor victims.

The 3-year-old who was shot was camping with his parents at Tucquan Park Family Campground in Martic Township on Oct. 20. The child’s father left a 9 mm firearm unattended on a collapsed table while he examined a music speaker that was not working. The child unholstered the gun and accidentally shot himself in the left eye.

No evidence of drugs or alcohol was found on site.

Diamantoni ruled the shooting death an accident in October, and the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office decided to not pursue charges in the case in November.