They are fighting to ensure that coroners act with professionalism and are objective. What happened to the Wolkoffs happens all the time.
People just don't know it. It is absolutely sickening and horrifying. Frontline, NPR and Propublica spent years investigating what coroners in California are doing with our loved ones after they die. I hope the Wolkoffs never "take no for an answer" when fighting for our rights and the need for this kind of change. We should all be so strong"
An unprecedented collaborative investigation by FRONTLINE, ProPublica and NPR found a very different reality: A dysfunctional system in which there are few standards, little oversight and the mistakes are literally buried.
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.
Most people assume that the immediate legal next of kin have all of the rights of making sure that their deceased loved one is treated with respect and dignity, according to their wishes, in a humane manner.
Wrong, it appears that you do NOT OWN YOUR OWN BODY, NOR DOES YOUR FAMILY.
The Coroner owns you, all of you or whatever human part they decide to keep. Laws in most States, in particular California are deliberately kept weak and watered down so that just about anything that a Coroner wants to do with human remains is often considered "legal" by default, since there are only 3 or 4 specific things that a Coroner/County is not allowed to do.
Naturally all attempts by the State Legislature to strengthen these laws have been defeated by the California State Coroners' Association and the State Sherrifs Association which are taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. According to a Pacific Research Institute study, the group is funded in whole or in part by taxpayer dollars, in the form of membership dues paid by local governments.
These lobbyists who don't want their clients powers to be eroded in any way, including the power of owning your body. This explains how the barbaric behavior of Government officials was allowed to happened to my son Steven Nathaniel Wolkoff, a long list of similar innocent victims, and their families. I have written about what happened to Steven in many Blog posts, the most recent one dated August 1, 2012.
In San Mateo County California where the Coroners Office, the County Attorney, and other Public Officials allowed the mutilation of my sons body to occur because they do not respect the dignity of dead innocent victims, it is all about their need to cover the asses of those involved in the desecration of my son.
To that end, their use of the ARROGANCE OF JUSTICE, a term that I have coined to describe the absolute power that those public officials who are sworn to protect our legal rights, but instead wield complete power as to what they consider is legal, what is allowed to be released to the public as the "truth", that which is hidden to obscure violations of the law by those in charge.
The County officials through their Law Counsel who casually, rationalizes as if they are talking about a piece of merchandise, that they have done nothing wrong in how Steven's remains have been treated, somehow blaming us as victims in asserting our legal rights for due process, as we not only have a responsibility to do our very best in securing Justice for Steven, but to try to prevent this from happening to other families in the future.
These officials exist to prevent embarrassment to those public entities that employ them, all done at the expense of no justice given to hundreds of thousand voiceless victims and their families. They consider human life as having no value and in their warped minds have not a shred of a clue that their behavior AFTER Steven died is not only disgustingly immoral, heartless, but also illegal.
The ARROGANCE OF LAW exists because those in charge of the Laws can and do whatever they want in deliberately maintaining weak ambiguous laws, distorting, interpreting, and judging what constitutes the "legal truth".
They can because they know that they can, and in doing so these shameless, heartless, unfeeling monsters of the dysfunctional circus system of legal justice in America that mocks the victims harmed by others, enables this broken system to even further rot away, all because they refuse to accept accountability, responsibility for the actions of those in power.
We will keep on fighting, doing our very best to obtain Justice for Steven and all others victimized by the Coroners Office, Government officials, those who would rule us by their evil.