Autopsy Records and Evidence Preservation in Dallas, TX Examiner Records and Retention Clocks

The office exists because the statute requires it

Article 49.25 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that the commissioners court of a county with a population of more than 2,500,000 shall establish and maintain a medical examiner's office. The Census Bureau estimates Dallas County's population at 2,661,397 as of July 1, 2025, which places the county inside that mandate. The office operates as the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences at 2355 North Stemmons Freeway.

Note that the chapter carries a legislative note stating that it was repealed by Acts 2025, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 202, Section 3.01, effective April 1, 2027, so anyone relying on the current text after that date should check what replaced it.

Which deaths the examiner must investigate

Section 6(a) of Article 49.25 lists the categories requiring an inquest. They include a death within 24 hours after admission to a hospital, institution or jail, a person killed or dying an unnatural death, an unidentified body, a death where the circumstances suggest unlawful means, an apparent suicide, a death unattended by a physician, a child under six reported under Chapter 264 of the Family Code, and a death where the attending physician is uncertain of the cause. Section 9(a) provides that an autopsy is performed where the medical examiner deems it necessary or where the district or county attorney requests it, allows a limited autopsy, and requires the report to be filed with the prosecutor.

The office states that consent from the next of kin is not required for a death within its jurisdiction, while making an objection-to-autopsy form available for religious objections in appropriate cases.

What the caseload actually looks like

The institute's 2025 annual report records 18,708 deaths in its jurisdiction, 14,862 deaths reported and 14,576 investigated, with 5,865 deaths certified and 1,563 scenes investigated. It counts 4,826 bodies brought to the facility and 4,826 total examinations, of which 3,129 were autopsies, and reports 1,435 autopsies performed for outside jurisdictions. On timing, the report states that 4,305 postmortem examinations, or 89 percent, were completed within 90 days, and that among autopsies specifically 2,759, or 88 percent, were completed within 90 days while 390 took longer. Toxicology studies numbered 4,695 with 95.83 percent completed within 90 days.

Those figures set a realistic expectation. A family told that a report is pending toxicology is usually inside a normal process, not being ignored, and a report that has taken longer than 90 days is uncommon but far from unheard of.

Records, fees and what can be withheld

Section 11(a) of Article 49.25 requires the office to keep full and complete indexed records, including the full autopsy report, and provides that those records may not be withheld under a discretionary exception to public disclosure. Autopsy photographs and x-rays are treated differently, and remain subject to release under subpoena or where the death occurred in law enforcement custody.

The county's fee schedule effective May 1, 2025, adopted by commissioners court order, sets $15 for a notarized copy of an autopsy or external examination report, $5 for a plain copy, $5 for a cause of death report, $30 for a cremation certificate and $0.10 per page for miscellaneous copies. The same schedule prices expert consultation in a civil case at $460 per hour and expert testimony at deposition, hearing or trial at $635 per hour, which is a useful indication that the examiner's participation in litigation is a paid service rather than an included one.

Cremation, disinterment and the 48-hour rule

Section 10 of the article permits disinterment for the purpose of an inquest, and requires either an autopsy or a certificate that no autopsy was necessary before cremation, with the crematory keeping that certificate for two years. Section 10a provides that a body may not be cremated within 48 hours of death unless the requirement is waived in writing. Where a family is weighing cremation and there is any question about the cause of death, those provisions are the reason to raise the question before the arrangement rather than after.

Preserving the material the examiner does not hold

The examiner's file answers medical and forensic questions. It does not preserve a vehicle, a machine, a premises condition, a phone, a video file or a business record. The office's own guidance indicates that tissue samples are generally retained for about a year and that release of a body to a funeral home usually occurs within 24 to 48 hours, with identification by fingerprints taking one to two days, dental comparison about a week and DNA several weeks.

Everything else has a separate custodian and a separate retention schedule. Written requests that identify the item, the date and the location, sent to the party that actually holds it, are the mechanism that keeps a record from disappearing on an ordinary business timetable.