Dr. Charles Hirsch, the chief medical examiner, told a City Council committee that proposed budget cuts will greatly impact his office's ability to handle its work—and to release bodies to Jewish and Muslim families quickly. He said, "Respecting the religious beliefs of the dead, and the families who interact with us on a daily basis, is very important. This budget reduction will greatly impact (our) ability to meet the needs of people of the Jewish and Islamic faiths in particular, religions which require the expeditious burial of remains." The Post says the city is cutting $7 million the ME's office budget, while the state is "threatening to withhold $18.4 million in reimbursements to the city office." more ›

The city's medical examiner's office classified that a woman's death was due to dust from the World Trade Center wreckage dust. Staten Island resident Felicia Dunn-Jones, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Education with a husband and two children, was covered in dust on September 11, 2001 from the first collapse. She later developed sarcoidosis and died on February 10, 2002. Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch wrote in a letter, "It is likely, with certainty beyond a reasonable doubt, that exposure to WTC dust was harmful to [Ms. Dunn-Jones] ... and that exposure to World Trade Center Dust on 9/11/01 was contributory to her death. The manner of death will be changed from natural to homicide." more ›

Today, after Alan Newton was declared innocent, after serving 21 years for a Bronx rape he did not commit. The Innocence Project, which works on cases "where postconviction DNA testing of evidence can yield conclusive proof of innocence" at Cardozo Law School, helped find police evidence that the police had claimed was lost years ago. The NY Times' story headlines it as "New York Fail at Finding Evidence to Help the Wrongfully Convicted" and writes:

With more people and more crime than any other American city, New York also stores more evidence — over 1 million pieces in a central warehouse in Queens, and more in satellite facilities in each borough — and until recently, its inventory system consisted of handwritten ledgers and index cards. Besides storerooms run by the Police Department, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner also keeps some biological evidence. more ›