Sgt. Clint Shubel flicks on the overhead lights in the autopsy room at the Sonoma County morgue, illuminating the place where forensic doctors determine the cause of death for nearly 400 people a year.
Unlike the disorder depicted at other autopsy rooms across the country in a PBS Frontline documentary that aired last week, Shubel's examination facility is spare and functional.
Stainless steel sinks line one end of the tiled chamber where bodies are dissected. Scales for weighing internal organs hang from above. A cart carrying neatly arranged instruments, including syringes and a circular saw, await the next operation.
And the dead lie in carefully marked white bags in a refrigerator across the hall.
"People may come away from the documentary with an image of autopsies being conducted in a garage, under a single light bulb," said Shubel, who heads the unit for the Sheriff's Office. "But that's not the case here."
Past problems with forensic pathologists under contract with Sonoma County to perform death investigations figure prominently in the Frontline story and in a special report in today's Press Democrat identifying deficiencies in the autopsy system.
Fairfield-based Forensic Medical Group, which has held the county contract since 1997, comes under fire for supplying doctors with varying levels of competency, including several who worked on Sonoma County cases.
The documentary includes the tale of the botched 1999 Petaluma death investigation conducted by Dr. Thomas Gill, who was banned from performing autopsies in Sonoma County but later was rehired by FMG to work in other parts of Northern California.
His replacements also ran into problems. One doctor mistakenly concluded a death resulting from a 2004 jet ski accident on San Pablo Bay was a homicide. Another was dismissed over inaccuracies on his resume.
The company's current pathologist in Sonoma County, Dr. Kelly Arthur-Kenny, has suffered setbacks, but she's generally praised for her work by law enforcement officials, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys.
The 43-year-old doctor said she has learned from mistakes, including a 2006 autopsy on the wrong man and a 2009 arrest in Lake County on charges of drunken driving.
"Quite frankly, those will never happen again," Arthur-Kenny said. "In the past year-and-a-half, I've become more confident than ever in my abilities."
Both Sheriff Steve Freitas and District Attorney Jill Ravitch, who started their elected posts in January, said they do not know of any current problems.
The county is reviewing its contract with Forensic Medical Group, which comes up for renewal June 30.
"If there is a chance to save money, we'll look at it from that aspect," Freitas said.
The doctors' group believes it has the track record to continue doing autopsies for the county. Arthur-Kenny said the county gets high quality at a competitive price.
"I think FMG and the doctors in the group are all very capable people," Arthur-Kenny said.
In 2003, FMG was the only company that applied in the open bid process. The contract was $394,500 annually and was renewed in 2008, sheriff's Capt. Matt McCaffrey said.
Sheriff's records show that in fiscal year 2009-2010, 335 autopsies were conducted for Sonoma County at a cost of $1,000 each. Coupled with a $500 charge for lesser, external exams and other autopsy-related costs, the county paid $376,800 for autopsies last fiscal year.
Chris Reynolds, a veteran Santa Rosa private investigator eye who was integral in the discovery of Gill's checkered autopsy and work history, said the Frontline investigation "shows what a crumbling system it is, a completely broken system."
"There's not a standard anywhere in the country," he said.
A National Academy of Sciences study cited in the PBS investigation called for a move away from a coroner's office model to an independent medical examiner's model.
Reynolds and Sonoma County's former pathologist Jay Chapman have repeatedly called for such a change, citing a conflict between a law enforcement-run coroner's office investigating causes of death that could leaed to criminal charges.
"These are things I have been concerned about for years. I'm glad it's finally coming to national attention because the situation around the country is so abysmal," said Chapman, a Santa Rosa resident.
"Whenever you have a sheriff-coroner's system there is an immediate and automatic built-in conflict of interest," he Chapman.
The conflict comes because the pathologist paid for from a sheriff's office budget could be influenced in their findings, he said.
But law enforcement officials defend the current system.
In Sonoma County, autopsy efforts took a huge leap forward in 1990 when the county opened a central morgue for about $850,000 which provided a stable environment and modernized equipment.
Prior to the opening, a pathologist conducted autopsies at various mortuaries in the county.
Today, Shubel, a former violent crimes detective, oversees the two-story coroner's office on Chanate Road, across the street from Sutter Medical Center.
Four detectives work in cubicles on the top floor and the forensic pathologist conducts examinations in the "autopsy suite" on the lower level. Law enforcement officers and prosecutors watch through a plate glass viewing window or closed-circuit television.
It's a collaboration in which all of the information is considered in determining a cause of death, providing a system of checks and balances, McCaffrey said.
"We're constantly on the lookout for mistakes," McCaffrey said. "Constantly evaluating what we're doing. This is an extremely professional organization. It's well run."
You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com or Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com.
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