From The Republic:
SUMTER, S.C. — A Sumter newspaper is appealing a judge's ruling that autopsy reports in South Carolina are not public records.
A lawyer for The Item said the judge was wrong to rule that autopsy reports are medical records that are required to be kept private under state law.
Autopsies are like death certificates and "cannot be considered 'medical records in the normal sense' in that they are not prepared in connection with a course of treatment of an injury or an illness," attorney Jay Bender wrote in his appeal for the newspaper (http://bit.ly/UXX9lT).