Concerns are being raised about the credentials of County Medical Examiner Dr. Paul Shrode. Now, Commissioner Veronica Escobar has placed two items on the Commissioner’s Court agenda so that she and other commissioners can hear answers on the matter.
The item posted for regular session calls for the court to “discuss and take appropriate action on a personnel matter concerning the Chief Medical Examiner (Shrode).” The other item is posted for executive session and is set to “discuss a personnel matter concerning the Chief Medical Examiner.”
Escobar placed the items on the agenda, she said, only to have all facts presented to her, and not to condemn Shrode. “I just want to know if that situation can exist,” she said of Shrode remaining as medical examiner while not meeting some of the conditions of his job description. She also said that there are three issues she would like to be informed on: Shrode’s ability to do his job, his qualifications, and the legal issues involved with allowing him to continue testifying in court.
Escobar has had briefings from Shrode and other county department heads but she said she has received most of the information about the issue from the news, which is something she feels is unacceptable.
“What I want from legal and from [the human resources department] is to be brought up to speed on what the deal is, and I want all of us to be on the same page,” she said. “That’s what the [agenda items] are about.”
NPT attempted to contact Shrode at his office, but he was unavailable as his assistant stated he was performing an autopsy.
As KVIA reported, Shrode claimed to have a graduate law degree from Southwest Texas State University, though the chair of the university’s political science department said that the university has never offered such a degree. [Link to the KVIA story.]
Commissioner Dan Haggerty believes Shrode is well qualified to perform his duties as medical examiner. “There’s no question the man is very qualified to be a medical examiner,” he said.
However, he does feel that Shrode’s credibility could be undermined, though he stated that he does not believe Shrode has ever maliciously presented himself as something that he is not. “I said [to Shrode], ‘Have you ever told anybody that you’re a lawyer? Have you ever attempted to practice law?’ I think it’s just semantics.”
Haggerty would also like to hear from the county’s human resources department on how it hires and screens job candidates’ backgrounds. “That what we do need to do, say ‘HR, what is the procedure? How thorough were you?’”
Calls made late Friday afternoon to Liza Reyes, interim director of human resources for El Paso County, were unsuccessful.
Haggerty did state that Shrode’s questioned credibility could affect the way the District Attorney’s Office prosecutes criminal cases involving his testimony, but District Attorney Jaime Esparza, though, feels Shrode’s credibility is not a problem at this point, and he does not foresee it becoming a problem, yet.
“For the most part, at this point, it doesn’t affect any of our cases,” he said. “I don’t believe we have ever held him out to be some sort of legal expert. He’s always testified regarding his issues as a medical examiner, and those credentials aren’t really in question.”
Theresa Caballero, Esparza’s opponent in the upcoming Democratic primary election, has questioned Shrode’s legal expertise. She was quoted by KVIA asking Shrode, “'Do you have a diploma, a certificate, anything that hangs on your wall that you can show the ladies and gentlemen of the jury that says I, Dr. Shrode, have a law degree?' Not just a law degree, a graduate law degree?" to which Shrode replied, “No, I don’t have that.”
KVIA also reported that Shrode claimed to be a member of State Bar of Texas, though he said the membership was as a paralegal. He told KVIA that he has not taken the bar exam and cannot because he did not attend law school.
Esparza noted that Shrode does not need to be an expert in all issues that sometimes arise in the courtroom. He said that such expertise would come at a great cost to the county, and finding an outside expert on certain issues is a smarter and more cost-effective choice for the county.
“When the county needs an expert, we go out and look for an expert if we need him an another area,” Esparza said. “But for now, we’ve been able to do our business with the medical examiner that the county has hired. It’s just a question of what do we really need to pay for and what do we need. For almost every case that we deal with, we don’t need someone who has credentials in every area covered, it’s just not something that would be useful to us.”
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Rene Leon can be contacted at rene@newspapertree.com, or at 915.351.0605
