A Santa Fe judge declared that records related Gene and Betsy Hackman’s deaths could be released to the public — but in a mixed ruling handed down on Monday afternoon, they stipulated that images of the very private couple’s partially decomposing bodies will not be released.
Throughout Monday, Judge Matthew Wilson heard arguments at Santa Fe’s First Judicial District Court from attorneys representing the Hackman family estate, which had asked that footage and documents related to the two deaths in February, which are traditionally part of the public record, be made private. Opposing this in court was counsel representing Santa Fe County, who made a case for state law and ensuring government transparency and accountability.
“There shall be no depiction of either body in any video production,” Judge Wilson said in his ruling, which allows the release of redacted police body camera video and other documents. No photos or other explicit images from the autopsy reports will be made public, either.
In March, police and the medical examiner revealed elements of the autopsy reports on the iconic actor and his wife of 30 years. The bodies of both were found Feb. 26 in separate rooms of their home during a wellness check; neither showed signs of external trauma, police said, but Hackman’s pacemaker had sent its last record on Feb. 17, suggesting he had been dead for at least one week before his body was discovered slumped over in a mud room off the couple’s kitchen.
Gene Hackman died of severe cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributory factor and Betsy Hackman died in their living room of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe respiratory illness caused by viruses transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents, the New Mexico Medical Examiner said. The couple had strived to live a private life together in their house on Old Sunset Trail Road after withdrawing from Hollywood life in 2004.
On Monday, Sante Fe attorney Kurt Sommer told the court that the Hackman estate has a duty to protect Gene and Betsy’s property, including photographs and videos taken of their dead bodies at the time they were discovered and during their autopsies. The arguments on Monday centered around whether the temporary restraining order Judge Wilson granted on March 17, effectively halting public access to the autopsy reports and death investigation reports for the estate, should become an injunction as their deaths are further investigated and other aspects of their estate are settled.
“Gene and Betsy Hackman’s names, likenesses and images are valuable and need to be protected and that is clearly proven out by virtue of the press wanting to get their hands on the documents to exploit them for their own personal profit and gain,” Sommer said attorney Kurt Sommer for the estate at a hearing today in New Mexico over releasing materials related to the February deaths of the couple. “This estate has a duty to protect Gene and Betsy’s property, including photographs and videos of their dead bodies,” the Sante Fe lawyer asserted.
The major question was whether the couple maintained a right to privacy in death, as well as the right to control the use of one’s image after dying. The estate also argued that releasing the footage could cause future security issues at the late couple’s estate.
“The request for the video is nothing more than backdoor exposure to the Hackmans’ lifestyle that could not be attained by the press during their lifetime,” Sommer said. “There’s no damage to the media by waiting until these matters are decided, a significant amount of videos have already been released to the press.”
Santa Fe County counsel Walker Boyd argued that the couple retains no right to privacy in death, according to the state laws currently on the books. He called it “very unusual” for a judge to be asked to enter an order “to stop state entities from doing their statutorily required jobs,” i.e., providing access to the records surrounding the death of a public figure.
“The estate and intervening family members do not possess the right of privacy being asserted here,” Boyd said.
The Associated Press, CBS News and CBS Studios had intervened in the matter after the judge issued the temporary order in February. Attorney Gregory P. Williams, representing the news outlets, told the judge that court filings showed that images of the couple’s bodies would not be disseminated and they would blur to obscure them from other records.
“There is certainly a public interest in knowing how their deaths were investigated and knowing how that was handled,” Williams told the court.
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