Newly proposed public records carve-out could protect Florida DCF from scrutiny, critics say

A bill sailing through the Florida Legislature that would bar public access to autopsy reports of children killed in acts of domestic violence is intended to protect families from having to relive the trauma of their children’s deaths.

The Rex and Brody Act, filed as Senate Bill 404, is named in honor of two Gainesville boys, Rex and Brody Reinhart, ages 14 and 11 respectively, whose father killed them, set the family’s Gulf Coast waterfront vacation home ablaze, and then killed himself in May 2021.

An autopsy report detailing the killing of the boys circulated through the media to the dismay of their mother, Minde Reinhart. She testified before lawmakers that she did not want to know any of the details of her sons’ fatal shootings at the hands of her estranged husband, Paul Reinhart.

But the legislation is drawing sharp criticism from First Amendment and open government advocates, who warn it may derail oversight reporting covering state child welfare failures.

The legislation was co-introduced by Sen. Keith Perry of Gainesville in the Senate and Rep. Charles Clemons of Jonesville in the House — both Republicans — and has already successfully worked its way through several committees in both chambers. The Senate passed the legislation unanimously following a hearing on April 11.

Parents of a deceased child would still have access to the autopsy report, provided that they did not commit the domestic violence leading to the child’s death. It will also allow the parent to release the autopsy report to the public.

When asked during a hearing before the House Criminal Justice & Public Safety Subcommittee last year why the legislation did not apply to victims of other violent acts, such as school shootings, Clemons said the legislation was drafted narrowly to address only a specific crime, domestic violence.

The bill, Clemons said, was intended as a protection for families devastated by domestic violence — as a way to spare them from hearing in the media the gory details of the last minutes of their children’s lives.

Clemons said the measure was not intended to undermine Florida’s public records law — one that, he said, often serves as a model for other states.

“We were not trying to make a gaping hole in that great public records law,” Clemons said. “What we’re trying to do is narrowly define the scope and it was brought to bear by this terrible tragedy.”

In the same hearing, Rep. Mike Beltran, a Valrico Republican, expressed support for the bill, saying that the purpose of the state’s public records laws is to show the workings of state and local government — not to publicize the gruesome details of a domestic violence crime.

Open government advocates, however, say access to autopsy reports plays a critical role in the oversight of Florida’s perennially troubled child welfare program by journalists and others.

Specifically, the measure could make it far more difficult for journalists and advocates to access state records when children die as the result of abuse or neglect, said Mark Caramanica, whose law firm represented the Herald and other media in a lawsuit against the Department of Children and Families for violating public records laws. The Herald sought the DCF records of a 22-month-old child, Rashid Bryant, who died from physical abuse and medical neglect at the hands of his parents after a lengthy history with the agency.

Caramanica said that concealing the circumstances of a child’s death will make it harder to ensure accountability over those charged with keeping children safe.

“This exemption would be a gift to every government agency in Florida tasked with protecting children, because how the children died exactly, the official medical reason, will be hidden from the public,” he said. “And that puts future children’s lives in danger.”

The autopsy report, he said, is a key document in determining whether DCF, or even foster parents, may have failed in protecting a child.

The First Amendment Foundation, a nonprofit advocate for government transparency, joined the Miami Herald in its lawsuit against DCF, and earlier this year released a letter expressing its opposition to the Rex and Brody Act.

While acknowledging the anguish of Minde Reinhart and other domestic violence survivors, the foundation emphasized that keeping autopsy reports public is necessary to protect children in the child welfare system and ensure public oversight of DCF’s efforts.

Under Florida law, the records of DCF’s involvement with a family remain sealed unless a child dies as the result of abuse and neglect.

Absent an autopsy report, though, it can be extremely difficult to make that determination. Thus, this exemption will allow government agencies, like DCF, to evade accountability, advocates like Caramanica and the First Amendment Foundation say.

Access to death records, no matter how disturbing, is critical to maintaining transparency so the public can understand what happened, advocates say. And, by revealing systemic failures leading up to a child’s death, the documents can prevent future tragedies.

Exemptions like the autopsy bill also chip away at the state’s open records law, which was adopted in a voter referendum by an overwhelming majority of Floridians, Caramanica said. Such exemptions to the public’s right to know have been a staple of every recent legislative session, Caramanica added.

“It’s death by a thousand cuts.”

This story was originally published April 19, 2023 at 8:26 AM.