GREENSBORO, Md. — Anton Black's family receives justice after securing a settlement with the Maryland Medical Examiner according to the ACLU of Maryland.
Partnering with the Justice Coalition, this is the final resolution of their federal court litigation.
The lawsuit all stems from the brutal death of Maryland teen Anton Black, 19, back in 2018.
Black died in a struggle with police officers on the Eastern Shore.
His killing was improperly classified as an accident, rather than a homicide by Maryland Medical Examiners.
Today's settlement makes changes to the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s process for autopsies conducted on people killed in law enforcement custody and requires notification to families about the results and their rights to challenge the results.
Reforms to the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner include:
- For the first time, adoption of a policy explicitly addressing how medical examiners are to handle deaths in custody.
- Significantly, this policy applies to all deaths in custody involving law enforcement restraint, including deaths occurring in facilities like jails, prisons and juvenile facilities.
- The new policy incorporates and models guidelines of the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME) for determining how such deaths are investigated and how examiners determine causation; The NAME standards are clear that whenever a person would not have died “but for” the intentional conduct of another, that death is a homicide;
- Transparency: Requiring documentation of all sources of initial investigative information and disclosure of any law enforcement or other personnel present for an autopsy.
- Impartiality: In-custody death investigations and autopsies must be performed impartially.
- Independence from improper law enforcement influence: Even if the source of information is law enforcement, medical examiners must consider investigative information independently and objectively in all cases. Non-OCME personnel are prohibited from providing input about the autopsy, inspection or examination.
- Internal review: Prior to release, all completed autopsy reports are presented and the Chief Medical Examiner or Deputy must review the file prior to approving its release.
- In addition, the OCME must provide families who receive autopsy reports with notice of their rights to seek correction and review of the findings, and list these rights on its website.
- The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner must now provide information on its website about new procedures for requesting an autopsy correction. And information about these procedures must also be attached to autopsy reports issued to the public.
Just last fall, the family and Coalition reached a $5 million settlement with the police and municipal officials involved in Black's death.
As a result, this required improvements in police training and policies.
The family’s federal lawsuit accused police of using excessive force on Black after they chased him and tried to restrain him outside his family’s home in rural Greensboro, Maryland, in 2018.
Officers handcuffed Black and shackled his legs before he stopped breathing.
The lawsuit also accused police of trying to cover up an unjustified killing, falsely claiming that Black was high on drugs and exhibiting “superhuman” strength.
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At the time of Black's death, Dr. David Fowler led the Medical Examiner's Office in Maryland. Back in 2022, state officials launched an investigation into 'in-custody deaths handled by Fowler following his testimony for the defense in Derek Chauvin's trial.
Chauvin was the officer convicted in George Floyd's murder.
Fowler said Floyd's death should have been ruled undetermined instead of a homicide. That led to concern that Fowler's exams could be motivated by racial or pro-law enforcement bias.
