They won’t let the dust settle in the wake of Dale Earnhardt’s death a month ago. His survivors are battling efforts by The Orlando Sentinel newspaper to have a pathology expert take a look at photographs taken during the autopsy.

The newspaper promises that it “doesn’t plan to” publish the photos. It only wants access so an expert it will hire can look at them. The expert then will issue an opinion about the cause of death, the newspaper will write some stories and people will buy the paper.

The Earnhardt family claims that, if the photos are released, even if the Sentinel doesn’t publish them, they will get out, someone will scan them onto the Internet and people all over the world will be able to look at them … and each time someone does, the family will feel pain.

This week, the Florida Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee voted unanimously to make it a third degree felony to release autopsy records without showing good cause to a judge first. A third degree felony? In Florida that can get you five years in jail and a $5,000 fine!

The bill is sponsored by Senator Jim King, whose district includes Daytona International Speedway. He and other supporters held off attempts to make the proposed crime a misdemeanor. They also rejected a compromise that would have allowed the public to view autopsy photos but would have required a judge’s permission to make copies.

The measure has to go through another committee before going before the full Florida Senate for a vote. A companion bill in the Florida House of Representatives has yet to get a committee hearing.

Another Florida Senator, Locke Burt, said he supports the idea of preventing families from being hurt by public viewing of photos of their decedents, but feels the proposal as it stands now has First Amendment problems.

It sure does.

There is an interesting phenomenon going on here which happens anytime a freedom of the press issue takes place. It’s sort of like going to a restaurant and being forced to eat whatever the server wants to give you. You don’t get to look at the menu.

The press does the reporting to the public, so frankly, stories are going to support the freedom side of the issue. The saving grace is that there is a lot of press, a lot of reporters and a lot of news sources from which the public can choose. With a little effort, which is not too much to ask of a responsible citizenry, one can get a balanced view of the issue.

That said, it seems that the Earnhardt family wants protection which has not been available to other families in similar circumstances. Fears for the First Amendment are real.

The people who wrote the Constitution saw the need for public scrutiny of government and felt that the press was the best way to provide that scrutiny. Government moves to restrict press/public access to its operation for any reason other than military security, hurts all the public.

It goes without saying that no one wants to cause further pain for the Earnhardts. Unfortunately, these things happen.

The government has established laws which require autopsies under certain circumstances. The records of those autopsies thus are public records. Public records, folks. Yours and mine. Not Jim King’s, not Teresa Earnhardt’s … ours. If we don’t want to look at them, fine. If we do, that’s fine too. Ghoulish … but fine.

Being exposed to the possibility that your loved one’s autopsy photos go on public view may just be the price that has to be paid sometimes, fortunately not often, by families in the public eye.