What are they hiding? Officials refuse to name hiker who died at Lake Mead
The April desert heat sneaked up on a group of hikers at the popular Arizona Hot Springs trail last month, killing one of them and requiring a helicopter evacuation for the others. A separate group of schoolkids had to be rescued, as well.
More than a month later, neither the Mohave County Medical Examiner’s office in Arizona nor the National Park Service will identify the hiker or discuss the circumstances of the death.
“Once they notify next of kin, they announce the name of somebody who died,” said Gregg Leslie, executive director of the First Amendment Clinic at Arizona State University. “Why would you hold that secret?”
The county medical examiner claims it has a blanket policy where it doesn’t release investigative reports or the identities of any people whose death it is investigating to the media — a potential violation of state open records law that hasn’t been widely tested in court, according to experts interviewed for this story.
Arizona open records law doesn’t consider autopsies and coroner reports confidential, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. A 1994 state court case upheld that autopsy reports are in the public record, though in 2009 a judge ruled in some cases a private judicial review is necessary before the public release of autopsy reports, autopsy photographs and other investigative materials.
It’s a far cry from policies in Nevada, where the Clark County coroner’s office regularly provides the Las Vegas Review-Journal the identity of those who have died along with the circumstances of their deaths. The newspaper previously won a court case to compel the Nevada office to release child autopsy reports.
That access to information underpinned “A fatal forecast,” the Review-Journal’s award-winning investigation into the record number of heat-related deaths in Southern Nevada last year.
Park service denies records request
In addition to no records from the medical examiner, the park service denied the Review-Journal’s Freedom of Information Act request for the identity of the hiker and any associated autopsy or medical examiner report.
The agency referred the Review-Journal to the Mohave County office for the reports, a representative for which couldn’t provide any legal justification for the policy when reached by phone Wednesday. She didn’t respond to a follow-up email.
A separate request for park service incident reports is pending after being filed this week.
Danee Garone, a public records attorney at the Arizona Ombudsman-Citizens’ Aide office meant to help citizens fight records denials, said two exemptions supported by the state records law are often interpreted loosely.
If a government entity believes there’s a privacy interest that would be harmed by disclosure that outweighs the public interest in a public record, it can be withheld. The other exemption is to protect government interests that are of more importance than the public interest.
Both are subjective, and it’s hard to make any sweeping conclusions about the Mohave County case without understanding what the legal basis for the office’s policy is, Garone said.
“I don’t know if something like that would hold up in court,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they just have never really thought about this.”
Leslie, of the First Amendment Clinic, agreed that the justification would be shaky at best.
“It’s the first we’re all hearing about this, and I can’t imagine that they’ve got precedent that they’re basing this on,” Leslie said.
The “What Are They Hiding?” column was created to educate Nevadans about transparency laws, inform readers about Review-Journal coverage being stymied by bureaucracies and shame public officials into being open with the hardworking people who pay all of government’s bills. Were you wrongly denied access to public records? Share your story with us at whataretheyhiding@reviewjournal.com.
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.