DuPage County coroner candidates clash over experience, ideas for office

DuPage County Coroner Richard Jorgensen is running for a fourth term but will have to overcome a challenge from a Democrat for only the second time since he took over the office.

Jorgensen, a Wheaton Republican who was first elected coroner 12 years ago, faces Judith Lukas in next month’s election. The race pits a retired vascular and trauma surgeon against a Winfield Township trustee who has promoted her nursing background.

“I have a vast amount of medical, surgical experience, administrative experience. And on top of that, I’ve been a coroner in many, many high-profile and difficult cases. You can’t come to this job and get on-the-job training,” Jorgensen said during a recent endorsement interview with the Daily Herald.

Lukas, a registered nurse, said she’s dealt with end-of-life issues.

“So as far as sensitivity, confidentiality, patients’ rights, families’ rights, that’s in my DNA,” Lukas said at a League of Women Voters forum in Wheaton.

Lukas, a township trustee since 2021, said she would work on bringing a forensic laboratory to the coroner’s office. She wrote in a candidate questionnaire that she would take advantage of grants and federal money toward building a lab.

“Running the lab will create high-tech jobs in the county that are very good-paying jobs. In addition to that, I want to do all of the forensic lab work for DuPage County for all the police departments,” Lukas said.

The coroner’s office uses a national lab mainly to test for legal and illegal drugs, Jorgensen said in a follow-up email. He called the lab the “gold standard” in part because of its knowledge of local and national drug trends and Jorgensen noted many of the coroners in Illinois use that lab.

In addition, a crime lab at the DuPage sheriff’s office is available to the coroner and other jurisdictions investigating a death.

“It’s been found to be one of the best crime labs and forensic labs in the state, so we use them extensively and that is available to DuPage County right now and that’s what the police rely on,” Jorgensen said.

He said he has “completely revamped and reorganized” the coroner’s office to be more efficient.

“When I first started, there were 4,500 cases that we reviewed. This last year, we reviewed 6,800 cases. We have the same headcount and we have taken care of that increased workload by doing the job better with less,” Jorgensen said at the League forum.

Lukas suggested in the questionnaire that a needed improvement is the office notifying the public when a death occurs in police custody.

“There are laws that dictate what the coroner’s office can and cannot release, but just as there’s a press release when a pedestrian is hit by a train or someone is found deceased, we also need to have press releases any time there’s a death in custody, whether it’s the county jail or in any of our police forces. And I think without that, we have distrust in the public,” she said.

Jorgensen said he responds to journalists personally and gives the information that he can at the time.

“These are families and people. And first of all, we have to identify the person,” he said. “Then we have to identify next of kin and that they are having the worst day of their lives. … I have not typically put out a lot of press releases for exactly that because then we’re putting out the names of people and it may very, very affect the living and the families that remain.”

The election is Nov. 5.

https://www.dailyherald.com/20241017/news/dupage-county-coroner-candidates-clash-over-experience-ideas-for-office/