Are Autopsy Reports Public in Tennessee? (2026)

Tennessee autopsy reports are public records. Under the Post-Mortem Examination Act, any person may request a completed autopsy or toxicology report from the regional forensic center or county medical examiner that performed it, and the office may charge a reasonable copy fee. A court may seal portions of a report in an open homicide investigation, reports for a minor homicide victim are not public documents, and the decedent's medical records, law enforcement investigative reports, and autopsy images are never public.

Are Autopsy Reports Public in Tennessee?

Yes. In Tennessee, a completed autopsy report is a public record. The Post-Mortem Examination Act and the Tennessee Public Records Act treat the finished report, including the toxicology results, as open to inspection and copying by any member of the public.

This is broader than many states, where only the next of kin can obtain the report. In Tennessee, you do not have to prove a relationship to the deceased to request a copy of a finished report.

There are limited exceptions. A court may seal parts of a report tied to an active homicide or felony investigation, special rules cover minor homicide victims, and three categories of related material are never public at all. Those exemptions are explained below.

Who Performs Autopsies in Tennessee?

Tennessee uses a medical examiner system, not a coroner system. Although state law still allows for an elected coroner, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that no Tennessee county currently maintains a working coroner office, so county medical examiners handle death investigations.

The system is county-based. Each county has a medical examiner, and the statewide Office of the State Chief Medical Examiner, housed in the Tennessee Department of Health, oversees the network and trains county officials. Actual autopsies are usually performed at one of the state regional forensic centers.

A county medical examiner may order an autopsy in cases of homicide or suspected homicide, suicide, a violent, unnatural, or suspicious death, an unexpected natural death in an adult, and sudden unexpected infant or child deaths, among other circumstances. The chief medical examiner or a district attorney general can also order an autopsy in certain situations. Routine, well-explained natural deaths under a doctor's care are typically not autopsied.

Who Can Request a Tennessee Autopsy Report?

Any person may request a completed Tennessee autopsy or toxicology report. Because the finished report is a public record, the requester does not need to be the next of kin, an attorney, or a government agency.

The next of kin still has a special role in one area: ordering a private autopsy. A private, family-requested autopsy may only be requested and ordered by the legal next of kin or another individual with the appropriate legal authority. That is separate from simply obtaining a copy of an autopsy the medical examiner already performed.

For more background on how these rules work nationally, see Are Autopsies Public Records?.

How to Get an Autopsy or Toxicology Report in Tennessee

To get a Tennessee autopsy report, contact the regional forensic center or county medical examiner that handled the case, or the Office of the State Chief Medical Examiner, and submit a written request. Most offices use a short request form and ask for the decedent's name and date of death.

No Tennessee statute sets a price for a copy. The Office of the State Chief Medical Examiner, the county medical examiner, and the regional forensic centers may each charge a fee for copies of the autopsy report, toxicology report, and report of investigation, and the state's guidance to medical examiners notes that the Public Records Act does not fix an amount but requires the fee to be reasonable. Ask the office holding the report what it charges before you send the form. This is the fee to obtain a copy of a report the medical examiner already produced, not the cost of ordering a new private autopsy.

Processing takes time. A completed autopsy report is generally available within several weeks to a few months after death, because the office must wait on toxicology and other laboratory results before finalizing its findings.

Pending-Investigation Hold

A report tied to an open case may be withheld in part. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 38-7-110, a district attorney general may petition a court, supported by a sworn statement from a law enforcement officer, to keep portions of a county medical examiner, toxicology, or autopsy report confidential when release would seriously impair an active homicide or felony investigation. The court can order those portions sealed until the case is resolved.

Minor Homicide Victims

A 2024 amendment to Tenn. Code Ann. § 38-7-110, enacted as Public Chapter 906, removed both the reports of county medical examiners and the autopsy reports of minors whose manner of death is listed as a homicide from public-document status. Such a report may be released or inspected only if a non-suspect parent or legal guardian consents, a court orders release upon a showing of good cause, or another state or federal law requires it; otherwise the report is available only for in-person inspection at the medical examiner's office, with no photographs, photocopies, or electronic images permitted.

Records That Are Never Public

The same subsection keeps three categories out of the public record entirely, in every case. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 38-7-110(c)(3), medical records of deceased persons, law enforcement investigative reports, and photographs, video, and other images of deceased persons are not public records.

That limit applies even where the autopsy report itself is public. A requester who receives a completed report should not expect the autopsy photographs, the decedent's underlying hospital or clinic records, or the investigating agency's case file to come with it, and an office that withholds those items is following the statute rather than denying a public record.

Autopsy Report vs Death Certificate in Tennessee

An autopsy report and a death certificate are different documents. The death certificate is the official vital record filed with the Tennessee Office of Vital Records; it lists the cause and manner of death in a brief, standardized format and is used for estates, insurance, and benefits.

The autopsy report is the medical examiner's detailed forensic findings, including the examination, toxicology, and the pathologist's conclusions. If you only need the legal cause of death for an estate or insurance claim, the death certificate is usually enough. If you need the full medical explanation behind that conclusion, you want the autopsy report.

To order the vital record instead, start at Tennessee Death Records.

Disclaimer: This page is general information, not legal advice. Autopsy access rules, fees, and processing times vary by office and can change. Always confirm the current procedure with the regional forensic center, county medical examiner, or the Office of the State Chief Medical Examiner.

Sources

This page draws on the CDC Public Health Law program's Tennessee coroner/medical-examiner profile, the Tennessee Office of the State Chief Medical Examiner and its county medical examiner handbook, the Tennessee Post-Mortem Examination Act as amended by 2024 Public Chapter 906, and a Tennessee regional forensic center.

Up to Tennessee Death Records and the hub Death Records by State.