Macomb County Prosecutor Pete Lucido was relieved to hear county officials had done an about-face Tuesday and approved a new four-year contract to retain a medical examiner.
Lucido said there are pending cases where the county medical examiner is expected to turn in reports in the coming weeks as to whether deaths under investigation have been ruled homicide, accidental, or suicide.
“The report is the key,” Lucido said from behind his third-floor desk. “The families want to know. Loved ones want to know. I want to know — how did the person die?”
Just minutes earlier, the Macomb County Board of Commissioners had voted 8-4 to retain the services of the current medical examiner, Dr. Daniel Spitz.
Earlier this month, the board voted 9-4 to reject a $2.54 million contract with Spitz Pathology Group, owned by Spitz, primarily because of concerns over the lack of second party bidding on the contract and other issues.
The county by law must have a board-appointed medical examiner in place.
Lucido questioned whether if Spitz would be ethically or legally bound to testify on the county’s behalf in regard to the remaining cases he had worked on had the board moved not to renew the contract.
Officials in County Executive Mark Hackel’s administration had previously said presentation of the contract was delayed for about two weeks due to efforts to attract a second bidder.
Hackel said he believed approving the pact was the “right thing to do.”
“Our options are limited,” he said last week.
In an eight-minute meeting Tuesday, the county board approved the contract with little discussion.
Voting in favor of the contract were commissioners Donald Brown, Harold Haugh, Veronica Klinefelt, Mai Xiong, Michelle Nard, Julie Matuzak, Barbara Zinner, Don VanSyckel, and Joe Romano.
Commissioners Phil Kraft, Joe Sabatini, Jeff Farrington and Antoinette Wallace voted against it, just as they had earlier this month.
Brown, the board chairman, said some commissioners had concerns about the last-minute submission of the contract to the board as well as a 2020 scandal at the morgue that resulted in the firing of four employees. He said board members had some unanswered questions at the last vote.
“I think the board, after having more time to reconsider all the contract issues, decided to approve it. I know I wanted more time to reconsider our options,” he said.
In addition to concerns over a second bidder, newly elected commissioners questioned a 2013 scandal involving Spitz, who had been accused by a former longtime employee of operating a “tyrannical” regime. He also was accused of forcing out every member of the staff he inherited from his father, world-renowned medical examiner Dr. Werner Spitz.
Hackel said those issues have been resolved, with some contract language clarifying that Spitz only supervises his staff; the approximately 13 county employees in the office are supervised by county employees.
The new deal is a 50% increase from the prior $1.69 million, four-year contract, with the biggest hike by far in the first year. Spitz and his deputy medical examiner, Dr. Mary Pietrangelo, have been performing the autopsies for the past nine years, but the new contract adds a third certified forensic pathologist to handle the steadily increasing workload that Spitz attributed to more autopsies with the growing population, fatal drug overdoses and COVID-19 deaths.
In 2019, the Macomb ME conducted autopsies on 37% of all deaths in the county – 3,270 autopsies of the total 8,943 deaths, according to county records. That a dramatic increase from 2011 when autopsies were performed on 22% of deaths – 1,789 autopsies of the 8,084 deaths.
Spitz also performs autopsies for neighboring St. Clair County.
