Death of Dale Earnhardt - Autopsy Pictures

Autopsy Pictures

On February 19, 2001, the Volusia County Medical Examiner performed Earnhardt's autopsy. The unusual act of notifying NASCAR and Teresa Earnhardt was made prior to releasing the records sought by members of the public and media. Three days later, Teresa Earnhardt filed a legal brief in the Circuit Court of the Seventh Judicial Circuit, in and for Volusia County, Florida (Case No. 2001-30373-CICI Div. 32). Once the complaint was filed, the coroner's office was barred from releasing the public records, including autopsy photographs, pertaining to Earnhardt, until a formal hearing on the merits of Teresa Earnhardt's case could be heard.

On February 28, March 13, and March 16, 2001, the Orlando Sentinel, Michael Uribe, founder of WebsiteCity.com, and Campus Communications, Inc., publisher of the University of Florida's student newspaper The Independent Florida Alligator, filed motions to intervene into the Earnhardt v. Volusia litigation in order to uphold their rights to inspect and copy public records held by the Volusia County Medical Examiner to include the photographs and videotape of Dale Earnhardt's autopsy examination.

On June 12–13, 2001, a trial was then conducted before Judge Joseph Will. Will eventually ruled against Uribe and CCI's original public records requests and constitutional arguments to inspect and copy the medical examiner files pertaining to Dale Earnhardt, to include autopsy photographs. Judge Will's ruling set forth in motion an extensive legal battle later fought in the appellate courts by both Uribe and CCI seeking to deem the denial of their public records request unconstitutional under Florida State and Federal laws. Then on December 1, 2003, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear Uribe and CCI's appeal. Thus, the Florida Legislature's March 29, 2001 law preventing release of Earnhardt's public record autopsy photographs would remain in effect.

The Florida Legislature's March 29, 2001 law, also known as the Earnhardt Family Protection Act, was sponsored by Senator Jim King (R-Jacksonville) and changed Florida's previously long standing and historically open public records laws from that day onward. The Earnhardt law deemed Florida's medical examination autopsy photographs, video and audio recordings exempt from public inspection without the expressed permission from applicable next of kin.

A year after Earnhardt's death, in April 2002, TLC singer Lisa Lopes was killed in a car accident in Honduras. A similar controversy to the release of Earnhardt's autopsy photos occurred, as within days of Lopes' crash, autopsy photos began to circulate on the Internet. All three of Earnhardt's drivers (Steve Park, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Michael Waltrip) responded in protest to the leak by painting a single black stripe next to their cars' left headlight decals for the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway.