Idaho Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, (left) and state lawmakers take a break from legislative proceedings on the Idaho Senate floor on Jan. 7, 2025. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)
A bill to clarify Idaho coroners’ roles in death investigations is headed to the Idaho House of Representatives.
Senate Bill 1101 — developed with Idaho county coroners — is in response to a critical state government watchdog report that found inconsistencies in death investigations across Idaho, driven by sparse guidance in state law.
The Idaho Senate passed the bill on a 25-10 vote Wednesday.
The bill is cosponsored by all eight lawmakers who serve on the Legislature’s bipartisan Joint Legislative Oversight Committee.
“If we’re going to get justice for victims, this is an important part of the puzzle of criminal justice,” Idaho Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, who is cosponsoring the bill, said on the Senate floor.
In Idaho, coroners are an elected, county-level position, as outlined in the state’s constitution. Corners are the only people who can arrest a sheriff in Idaho, Wintrow said.
The watchdog report, released in 2024 by the Office of Performance Evaluations found deaths in Idaho were half as likely to undergo autopsies than the national rate — and that Idaho had the lowest homicide autopsy rate in the nation.
Presenting the bill to the Senate, Wintrow called the bill “a long-time coming.” She referenced decades of failed attempts to reform Idaho’s coroner system, which a ProPublica investigation last year detailed.
But Wintrow said she thinks this attempt is different because “it’s been led by the coroners themselves.”
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Bill would revamp Idaho’s death investigation standards
This year’s bill would partly repeal and expand the death conditions specified in Idaho law under which coroner investigations are required.
Clarifying the legal roles of coroners and law enforcement in death investigations was among several recommendations in the nearly 100-page watchdog report.
Under the bill, an Idaho coroner “shall be a medicolegal death investigator … charged with the responsibility of determining or certifying the cause and manner of death for those deaths properly the responsibility of the coroner.” Law enforcement would be responsible for criminal investigations, the bill says.
Some Idaho coroners “rely on law enforcement to conduct death investigations on their behalf,” the watchdog report found, which is “contrary to established best practices that say there should be separate, though cooperative, death investigations conducted by law enforcement and coroners.”
Idaho coroner reform isn’t done, Wintrow says. She also introduced a record confidentiality bill.
Wintrow told the Idaho Senate her bill is addressing coroners’ duties, responsibilities and training, but doesn’t necessarily address the watchdog report’s oversight recommendation.
She said she was confident the bill was a good first step, but coroners will continue working to improve Idaho’s coroner system.
The Idaho Legislature’s oversight committee requested a follow-up needs assessment, said Wintrow, a co-chair of the committee.
Wintrow added that lawmakers are looking into a bill to address confidentiality in death investigations — protections that one parent pleaded for in committee, the Sun previously reported.
Senate Bill 1135, introduced Wednesday and cosponsored by Wintrow, would make documents, records or information Idaho coroners receive or prepare for coroner reports exempt from public disclosure.
Two Idaho senators worried about bill’s impact on rural counties. Others praised the bill.
Calling coroners an important position, Sen. Ben Adams, R-Nampa, who voted against the bill, told the Senate he’d “hate to put any county, even if it’s one or two, in a position where they couldn’t find a qualified coroner because they weren’t a forensic pathologist.”
Sen. Christy Zito, R-Mountain Home, who also voted against the bill, said she worried the bill could put extra burden on “smaller, less-funded counties.”
“I live in one of those small counties where we don’t have big, fancy facilities for our coroner,” Zito said.
The Idaho Sheriffs’ Association and the Idaho Association of Counties support the bill, the Sun previously reported. Idaho State Association of County Coroners President Torey Danner is also sponsoring the bill.
Two other Republican state senators praised the coroner bill.
Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, said the bill provides uniformity and helps people in “rural areas that may lack some expertise.”
“It has been very refreshing to see members of our state, people in our state, come to us and say, ‘Here’s an issue that we have, and here are some solutions. And we need your help to help solve that,’” said Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls.
To become law, Idaho bills must pass the Senate and House, and avoid the governor’s veto.
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