Dwindling budgets appear to be the biggest obstacle to the passage of a bill advocates have dubbed “Kari’s Law.”

Scheduled for public hearing today, legislators have cast doubt on whether the bill, which would amend Texas law to require autopsies on all suspected suicide victims, could be approved in a climate of statewide budget deficits and financial anxiety.

Still, proponents like Tom and Jan Purdy said such legislation would protect residents and capture criminals.

“The state of Texas needs to come into the real world and promise justice from a humanitarian standpoint,” Tom Purdy said. “Our concern is that people will think there are other, more important priorities than this (in the legislative session). The thing that chills us — about the past, but more importantly, the future — is that it’s easy to conceal murder as a suicide in the state of Texas.”

Kari Baker’s death

The bill, HB 3546, was created with Kari Baker in mind.

The 31-year-old’s death in April 2006 initially was ruled a suicide after Hewitt police made a late-night phone call to Justice of the Peace Billy Martin.

Judging from the described scene, which included open bottles of pills and a typed suicide note — and lacking overt signs of a crime, such as gunshot or stab wounds — the case was ruled a suicide.

Months later, as evidence mounted against Baker’s husband, former Baptist minister Matt Baker, Kari Baker’s body was exhumed and an autopsy performed.

Matt Baker now is serving a 65-year sentence for murder after jurors determined he first drugged his wife with a combination of alcohol and sleeping pills, then suffocated her with a pillow.

Tom and Jan Purdy, friends of Kari Baker’s parents, said this week that work on “Kari’s Law” started after the trial concluded in January 2010.

Neither knew until the trial, and the subsequent media coverage of it, how little training is required of justices of the peace in regard to death investigations.

The Purdys immediately began a push to change state law to require a qualified medical examiner to determine the cause of death in cases in which suicide is suspected.

They sent letters to House and Senate members, they said, explaining the background on the law and the urging legislators to support it.

Several of the legislators who expressed support for the bill were not re-elected, according to the Purdys.

More recently, they have sent letters to members of the committee on criminal jurisprudence, where the bill has been for nearly a month.

A public hearing today was not scheduled until late Monday afternoon.

In committee

Rep. Charles “Doc” Anderson, R-Waco, said Friday he filed the bill because “it is an area that . . . needs to be addressed.”

“We want to be sure that we don’t run the risk (that) an apparent suicide is actually a murder,” he said. “It also would be closure to families who don’t know for sure what happened to loved ones.”

But Anderson acknowledged it could be difficult to convince counties to take on the cost of sending more people for autopsies.

“We don’t have the excess revenue on the state side, and we don’t like to put the burden on the counties — that’s the downside of the bill,” he said. “Time will tell if it will go forward. The biggest hurdle is that it is unfunded. . . . I can see the need. It’s just that it might be a difficult time to satisfy that need.”

Time running short

Last week, Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, noted that time is “starting to run out” for legislation.

A total of 252 bills were sent to the committee on criminal jurisprudence, he said.

About 54 had not been scheduled for public hearing as of Thursday.

Hartnett said the bill would have to be out of committee by May 6 and passed by the House by May 12.

In addition to the problems with assigning a new mandate to counties, the legislator said there could be other issues.

“I’m glad (Matt Baker) was caught, and likely this bill would lead to other murderers being caught and brought to justice,” Hartnett said. “But besides the cost problem, it gets down to a percentage question — what percent of autopsies would demonstrate a homicide? . . . (And) I suspect the families of suicide victims would be resistant to autopsies.”

An aide of Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, chair of the committee on criminal jurisprudence, said the legislator didn’t want to comment on the legislation until he has heard arguments in public hearing.

Cost questions

Last fiscal year, McLennan County spent nearly $266,000 on autopsies, according to staff at the McLennan County Auditor’s Office. For fiscal year 2010-11, the county allotted $270,000. Each autopsy costs about $2,000.

Despite the cost, McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna said he was “all for” sending all suspected suicides to autopsy.

“There’s a scientific element there. . . . It’s similar to having scientific evidence that backs up eyewitness testimony,” he said. “(An overlooked homicide) is a grave injustice that, in my opinion, justifies apparent suicides being sent for autopsy.”

Justice of the Peace E. Jean Laster said she, too, supports the legislation.

“Historically, if there is a question, I have ordered an autopsy,” she said. “I would rather err on the side of caution.”

Other solutions

McLennan County Justice of the Peace David Pareya, based in West, also the president-elect of the Texas Justice Court Judges Association, said there may be a more cost-effective solution.

Ordering autopsies on each suspected suicide would incur a “massive cost,” he said. But enhancing state educational requirements for justices of the peace in inquests, using grant funding, would be more reasonable, Pareya said.

In that vein, the association he soon will lead has backed its own version of “Kari’s Law,” HB 2394.

Pareya said no specific inquest training now is required of justices of the peace. This legislation, he said, would be the first mandating at least four hours of inquest-specific training.

“Our organization is not going to oppose that legislation (HB 3546) at all,” he said. “Our concern is the unfunded mandate portion of that.”

Offering support

The Purdys are urging those who support the law to contact their representatives, as well as members of the criminal jurisprudence committee.

Linda Dulin, Kari Baker’s mother, said last week she hopes legislators will carefully weigh the bill.

“I hope our elected officials can look past right this moment into what this means for Texans as a whole,” she said. “You never know when an event like this will come into your life, and you want to know that everything is done the correct way to find the cause of death.

“Everyone has the right to know how a loved one dies.”

kcrow@wacotrib.com

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