My Ongoing Tribute to the Greatest NASCAR Driver Ever

Dale Earnhardt

* please wait for all the graphics to load *

Volusia court delays Earnhardt autopsy hearing

By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
March 7, 2001
5:27 PM EST (2227 GMT)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Volusia County Circuit Judge Joseph Will granted a continuance on Wednesday to attorneys for Teresa Earnhardt seeking to delay a hearing to decide if the Orlando Sentinel newspaper can view autopsy photographs of the late Dale Earnhardt.

Continuing to display his human side in a case that lawyers for the Central Florida newspaper have argued purely as a matter of law, Will ruled the hearing will be held at 9 a.m. ET on Monday, March 19. The decision came after about one hour of arguments and rebuttals by attorneys for the two sides.

The hearing originally was scheduled for Thursday, but attorney E. Thom Rumberger, lead counsel for Teresa Earnhardt's newly-hired legal team, said he had not yet met Earnhardt's widow face-to-face, nor had he met the seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion's son, Winston Cup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. Rumberger said his firm was hired to take the case last Friday.

Rumberger argued that there was "not any primacy in the media's need to get this information . . .except the Sentinel's need to get it first." He stated that the Sentinel had made no effort to obtain similar documentation in the deaths last year of NASCAR drivers Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin in New Hampshire and Tony Roper in Texas.

He said the paper was primarily interested in obtaining the autopsy photographs because "this is their market," implying that it was an opportunity to compete with other news media and sell more papers.

"What is the harm in a delay of a week or 10 days, since these documents are not available to anyone else?" Will said, citing information he had recently received from a variety of sources. "I would very much like to put this off for a week to 10 days and put aside one full day to deal with it."

Will said he initially felt "a couple hours" would be sufficient to decide the case, but events since he initially became involved had caused him to re-evaluate that stance.

Attorneys for the Sentinel argued that "any time there's a delay in delivering information . . .any time there's a delay in a First Amendment case, 10 minutes is too long," but could come up with no hard and fast reason why the hearing could not be delayed.

Attorneys for the Sentinel, which reportedly has been joined in a suit to view the autopsy photographs by the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune and Chicago Tribune newspapers and WFLA-Channel 8, an NBC-TV affiliate in Tampa, Fla., have continually claimed it would not publish, copy or handle the photographs. Rather, it would engage an “independent expert” to examine them to conclusively determine how Earnhardt met his death. In the end, the paper said it is on a crusade to improve the safety of NASCAR stock car racing.

Teresa Earnhardt sued Volusia County four days after Earnhardt's death to prevent release of the autopsy photographs, calling it an invasion of her family's privacy. Will ordered the file with the autopsy photographs sealed by temporary injunction Feb. 22. The next day, the Sentinel made a request for the photographs, citing public records law.

Teresa Earnhardt traveled to the NASCAR races last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to renew her plea for media support in her quest for privacy.

While Wednesday's hearing was underway, Rumberger cited a news conference in the Florida capitol of Tallahassee, where Governor Jeb Bush and legislators were scheduled to introduce a bill to prohibit the release of autopsy photographs.