Who will perform autopsies and gather medical evidence for Vicksburg and Warren County investigations is unknown now that the state Department of Public Safety has removed Dr. Steven Hayne, 66, from its list of approved physicians.

“I don’t know all the facts or reasons,” 9th Circuit District Attorney Ricky Smith said this morning, admitting his office’s experience has been limited because he has been in office only since January.

Sheriff Martin Pace said he hopes the action will lead to the Legislature funding and filling the post of the state medical examiner, vacant since 1994.

“The state medical examiner is vital to any death investigation,” Pace said. “I trust the Department of Public Safety will make an appropriate decision in the best interest of the public.”

Hayne, a private pathologist who has performed postmortem examinations in Mississippi for more than 10 years, received a fax Monday from DPS at his Brandon office informing him of his removal. The agency has declined comment until a press conference later today, where Public Safety Commissioner Steve Simpson is expected to address how counties are going to fill the void.

The state’s medical association has criticized the lack of an official forensic pathologist working exclusively for the Department of Public Safety. Hayne held the title of acting state medical examiner in 1987 and 1988, but has worked on a per-case basis since. This year, lawmakers kicked in an extra $500,000 in funding to the office in hopes a state ME could be hired. Board certification is the key criteria, as Hayne’s main certification comes from the American Board of Forensic Pathology, defunct since 1995. One form of certification recognized currently is one from the American Board of Medical Specialties.

Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey, who, like Smith, is a first-term office holder, expressed confidence in Hayne, who has said he performs 1,500 autopsies annually, including several from Warren County homicides, industrial and vehicular accidents and suspicious deaths this year.

“I’ve always had all the confidence in the world in Dr. Hayne,” Huskey said, adding he was aware of recent, successful efforts by the Innocence Project to have his license to practice revoked by the State Board of Medical Licensure because of false and misleading autopsy reports. Two Noxubee County men jailed for more than 15 years for the slaying of two 3-year old girls were freed after the origin of bite marks left on the victim became unclear. It was another physician, however, who testified about the bite marks.

Still, a Hinds County assistant public defender trumpeted Hayne’s removal, calling the move in The Clarion-Ledger “a gigantic leap forward” for the state’s criminal justice system.

Others, such as Dr. Michael Baden of New York, who spoke in Vicksburg two years ago when the state’s coroners met here, told the newspaper dropping Hayne’s services was the wrong decision and Hayne’s 20-year body of work outweighed any current problems in the state’s apparatus for investigating violent crime. Money has always been an issue in filling the state medical examiner’s post. At his per-autopsy rate, Hayne was collecting more than $800,000 per year.

The only known local case where his involvement is in question involves a 2004 fatal wreck in Vicksburg off Warrenton Road. The victim was identified by then-Coroner John Thomason as Rochelle Thomas, a Jackson woman. An autopsy was ordered and reportedly performed by Hayne before the body was released for burial in Lyon, in Coahoma County. Though Vicksburg police have said the body was positively identified as Thomas by friends and her ID was in the car, her body was exhumed in August 2007 and the family says the body was determined through DNA tests not to be Thomas.