Missing or unidentified persons.

Existing law requires a postmortem examination or autopsy that is conducted at the discretion of the coroner to include certain procedures, including, among others, taking available fingerprints and palm prints and a dental examination including dental charts and dental X-rays, as specified. Existing law requires the coroner to prepare a final report of investigation containing information collected pursuant to the postmortem examination or autopsy. Existing law, subject to exception, prohibits cremation or burying of an unidentified deceased person until the jaws and other tissue samples are retained by the coroner. This bill would extend the application of these provisions to a medical examiner or other agency that performs a postmortem examination or autopsy. The bill would authorize these persons and the persons described above to retain another bone sample for the purposes described above if the jaws are not available. Existing law requires a coroner to submit dental charts and dental X-rays of an unidentified deceased person to the Department of Justice, if the coroner is unable to establish the identity of the body or human remains, within 45 days of the date the body or human remains were discovered and to submit the final report of investigation to the department within 180 days of the date the body or human remains were discovered. Existing law requires a law enforcement agency to report the death of an unidentified person to the department no later than 10 days after the date the body or human remains were discovered. This bill would apply these provisions to a medical examiner or other agency that performs a postmortem examination or autopsy investigating the death of an unidentified person. The bill would require the report to be made using the department's Unidentified Deceased Person Reporting Form. The bill would require the department to serve as a statewide repository for final reports of investigation and to maintain dental records in the Violent Crime Information Center database and the National Crime Information Center database. The bill would prohibit a law enforcement agency from establishing or maintaining any policy that requires the removal of a missing person entry from those databases based solely on the age of the missing person. The bill would require a final report of investigation from a postmortem examination or autopsy to additionally include any anthropology report, fingerprints, photographs, and autopsy report. By increasing the responsibilities of local government agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Existing law requires the Attorney General to establish and maintain the Violent Crime Information Center to assist in the identification and the apprehension of persons responsible for specific violent crimes and for the disappearance and exploitation of persons, particularly children and dependent adults. Existing law requires the Attorney General to establish within the center and to maintain an online, automated computer system designed to effect an immediate law enforcement response to reports of missing persons, and requires the center to make information authorized for dissemination that is contained in law enforcement reports regarding missing or unidentified persons accessible to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. This bill would reorganize and recast these and other provisions relating to missing persons, and would make conforming and technical changes. Existing law requires the Department of Justice to establish and maintain a publicly accessible computer Internet directory of information relating to, among other things, missing children who are "at risk," as defined, and unsolved homicides. This bill would expand those provisions to include persons who are at risk, as defined, and unidentified persons, as defined. Existing law requires a police department or sheriff's department to broadcast, without delay, a "Be On the Lookout" bulletin within its jurisdiction if the person reported missing is under 16 years of age. Existing law also requires that in cases where the missing person is under 16 years of age, and the report is taken by the Department of the California Highway Patrol, or a department other than that of the city or county of residence of the missing person or runaway, the department taking the report shall, within 24 hours, notify, and forward a copy of the report to the police or sheriff's departments having jurisdiction of the residence address of the missing person and of the place where the person was last seen. Existing law also requires that the report be submitted to the Violent Crime Information Center, if the report was taken by the Department of the California Highway Patrol. Existing law requires, if the person reported missing is under 21 years of age, or if there is evidence that the person is at risk, that the law enforcement agency receiving the report shall, within 2 hours after the receipt of the report, transmit the report to the Department of Justice. Existing law provides that these requirements on local police and sheriffs' departments shall not be operative if the governing body of the local agency adopts a resolution expressly making those requirements inoperative. This bill would extend the above-described requirements that are applicable to missing persons under 16 years of age to missing persons under 21 years of age. The bill would require the report transmitted to the Department of Justice to be done electronically using the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System. The bill would also require that information not immediately available for electronic transmission to the department be obtained by the investigating agency and provided as a supplement to the original entry as soon as possible, but in no event later than 60 days after the original electronic entry. The bill would specify the supplemental information to be provided. Existing law requires that a report of a missing person to a police department, sheriff's department, district attorney's office, Department of the California Highway Patrol, or other law enforcement agency be given in person or by mail, on a form approved by the Attorney General. Existing law requires the form to contain a release to secure dental or skeletal X-rays, or both, of the missing person. This bill would delete the requirement that the report be made in person or by mail and would require the form to include release of the treatment notes related to the X-rays. The bill would require the center's database to serve as a statewide database for those X-rays, and would require the Attorney General to forward the information to the National Crime Information Center. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 17506 of the Family Code proposed by SB 1460, to be operative only if SB 1460 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2015, and this bill is chaptered last. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.