ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A judge ordered a medical examiner on Wednesday to change the cause of death for an Albuquerque attorney from suicide to undetermined..
Mary Han was a well-known civil rights attorney who was found dead in her home in 2010.
First Judicial District Judge David Thomson ruled on Wednesday that the office must change the manner of death following years of attempts by the woman’s family to have it changed. The Albuquerque Police Department’s investigation into Han’s death was so flawed that the office couldn’t reach a conclusion of suicide, Thomson said.
More than 50 police officers, upper-level city officials and others came through the death scene and turned it into a “surreal circus”, according to the lawyers for Elizabeth Wallbro, Han’s sister.
The group trooped through Han’s home, drank water in the kitchen, used Han’s bathroom and handled items in her home instead of preserving evidence, the lawyers said.
“Due to the contamination of the scene and the loss of critical evidence, even under the most deferential standard, there is no basis for (medical examiner’s office’s) determination of the manner of death,” Thomson wrote in his 96-page opinion filed Wednesday. “Simply put, the evidence needed to make this determination was spoiled by the acts of the investigating agency.”
He called the office’s original conclusion “arbitrary and capricious.”
Alex Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, which the medical examiner’s office is a part of, said the agency disagrees with the judge’s ruling and is considering an appeal.
“Our experts conducted a complete and thorough investigation into Ms. Han’s death and we stand by the autopsy determination that Ms. Han died as a result of a suicide,” Sanchez said in a statement.
The Albuquerque Police Department previous said it also stood by its investigation into the death.
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