Judge denies effort to reclassify drug death

A Cook County judge has rejected a mother's request to order her daughter's overdose death reclassified as a drug-induced homicide rather than an accident.

Judge Sanjay Tailor said Tuesday that granting Irene Rodik's request regarding her 33-year-old daughter Valerie Teper's death in late 2016 would turn the Cook County medical examiner's office into a "super prosecutor of sorts."

The judge said he also was concerned that granting Rodik's request would create a "slippery slope" that might force the medical examiner to have to reclassify thousands of drug-overdose deaths as homicides.

The medical examiner has discretion to classify the manner of a death as its pathologists see fit based on autopsy and toxicology results, Tailor said.

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