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Medical examiner’s past affects criminal cases in Norfolk
Posted on Feb 28, 2010
Can criminal defendants expect to receive a fair trial when the people trusted to investigate the crime are criminals themselves? This is the question being asked by the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office in Norfolk.
It turns out that a Norfolk medical examiner who performed autopsies on crime victims has a checkered past. The medical examiner, Dr. Gary Zientek, has a history of brushes with the law over drug related offenses.
Zientek’s medical licsense was revoked in 2003, but later reinstated in 2007. He has three misdemeanor convictions for obtaining drugs by fraud in Henrico County. However, as a medical examiner trainee the Chief Medical Examiner claims that he was always under supervision and he was “one of the best trainees ever in Tidewater.”
According to a local news report investigation, Zientek participated in 175 autopsies for the medical examiner’s office, including 30 autopsies that were part of homicide cases.
Why is his drug offense past an issue? In at least one case prosecutors decided not to pursue the death penalty against a murderer who pleaded guilty to killing his stepdaughter. The man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole; prosecutors worried that the blemishes on Zientek’s record would prevent them from securing the death penalty because Zientek had participated in the victim’s autopsy.
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