Photo: Courtesy of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences
Luis Arturo Sanchez announced his resignation this week as Harris County’s chief medical examiner — ending a more than 20-year career in the county’s forensic sciences center.
Sanchez penned a letter to Harris County commissioners about his resignation this week from the position as the county’s top paid employee with an annual salary in the mid-six figures. A spokesperson for the county administration’s office said an interim will be appointed at the March 19 commissioners court meeting.
The resignation was made public in a news release on Thursday detailing Sanchez’s tenure in the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.
“I am proud of what our team has accomplished and confident in the strength of the organization to advance its mission,” Sanchez wrote in his resignation letter to county commissioners. “I look forward to supporting a smooth and orderly transition during the coming weeks, and I am cheering for the continued success of IFS.”
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Sanchez was appointed as the county’s chief medical examiner by commissioners in 2002. He is credited for sustaining the institute’s national accreditations and navigating the center through the COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed the lives of more than 8,000 Harris County residents.
“As chief medical examiner and IFS Executive Director, Dr. Sanchez helps bring justice to families whose loved ones have been victims of crime by performing autopsies,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo wrote in a statement Thursday. “He’s also transformed the department into a national leader in the field of forensic sciences.”
He unveiled the institute’s new $75 million, state-of-the-art forensic sciences building in the Texas Medical Center in 2017, funded by a 2007 voter-approved bond.
The institute has over the years been embattled by case backlogs — which appeared to reach a peak in 2016, officials previously told Houston Public Media. The backlog was exacerbated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020.
The county in 2023 invested $1.8 million into staffing and employee retention initiatives in the medical examiner’s office. Accelerating attrition rates in the office since the onset of COVID-19 impacted a longstanding backlog in the county’s criminal court system. The institute received a $12 million federal grant in 2023 to address the issues.
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