26:6B-17 Maintenance of records.

17. a. It shall be the duty of the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner and the office of each county or intercounty medical examiner to maintain full and complete records, properly indexed, for all medicolegal death investigations that they have conducted, including the name, if known, of every such person, the place where the body was found, date and cause of death, and all other available information relating thereto.

b. The original reports of the Chief State Medical Examiner, Deputy Chief State Medical Examiner, county or intercounty medical examiner, and assistant county or intercounty medical examiner, and the detailed findings of the autopsy, if any, along with the records of death notification, postmortem inspections and examinations, personal effects taken into possession, and any other information deemed necessary by the Chief State Medical Examiner, shall be attached to the case record for each medicolegal death investigation.

c. The Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner and the office of each county or intercounty medical examiner shall promptly deliver to the county prosecutor of the county in which the death occurred and to the Attorney General, copies of all records and other information relating to every death in which, in the applicable medical examiner's judgment, further investigation may be deemed advisable. The county prosecutor or the Attorney General may obtain copies of such records or other information from those offices as the county prosecutor or the Attorney General deems necessary for his investigation.

d. The records maintained by the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner and the office of each county or intercounty medical examiner, including those made by the applicable medical examiner or anyone under his direction or supervision, or transcripts thereof certified by the medical examiner, shall be received as competent evidence in any court in this State of the matters and facts therein contained.

e. The Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner and the office of each county or intercounty medical examiner may charge a reasonable fee to private persons for copies of such records and upon such conditions as may be prescribed by the Chief State Medical Examiner; provided, however, that no person with a proper interest in such records shall be denied access thereto. All such fees collected by the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner and by the office of each county or intercounty medical examiner shall be paid into the State Treasury or county treasury, as applicable, on or before the 10th day of each month.

L.2018, c.62, s.17.