Webb County medical examiner Corinne Stern joins the ranks of a dozen of medical examiners around the state who have been forced to take their state of oath. Yesterday we brought you the reactions from some County officials regarding the issue at hand about the medical examiner not taking her state oath of office.
"It is my understanding that she took the oath."
We wanted to make sure for ourselves so we went to the County Clerk's office and requested a copy showing that Corinne Stern did in fact take the oath. The oath shows that Stern signed her oath of office on September 8th a little before noon.
Although County officials like Judge Danny Valdez insist she didn't need to.
"But to be on the safe side, she did take an oath today so that cures whatever issues are out there."
As we said yesterday, Valdez and County Commissioner Jaime Canales said medical examiners are not appointed. But under the state law, it states that they are appointed by the Commissioner's Court. We have been trying to contact District Attorney Chilo Alaniz to get a statement on camera since Wednesday. He declined to do an interview on camera and instead sent us a statement.
On the issue whether or not cases before Stern signed her oath could be compromised, the D.A. writes:
“The District Attorney's office shall utilize the work product of Dr. Stern because of the fact that it is valid due to her being a licensed medical examiner. The administrative issues that have been brought up regarding her employment with the county have absolutely no bearing on the substance and quality of her work.”
The first big case which involves Stern's work without the oath of office involves the alleged murderer of little Katherine Cardenas.
Attorneys in the case representing Jose Eduardo Arredondo have already filed a motion to suppress an autopsy in the high profile case done by Dr. Corrine Stern . The motion that the attorneys filed argues that the autopsy performed on Cardenas should be supressed since Stern had not executed the oath of office or an anti-bribery statement at that time.