The autopsy result supposedly DEPENDED ABSOLUTELY on witness statements.
Anonymous witness statements not taken under oath and contradicting what was said publicly by the witnesses.
So to bypass the requirement for sworn statements Dr Harle (who wasn’t there, used no means to communicate the pronouncement of death that the anonymous EMS worker claimed she made, didn’t know what Fuddy was truly wearing in the water, and changed the cause of death without substantiation after failing to do the enzyme tests that would have made her case or request the medical records that would have been legal-quality evidence rather than mere hearsay,) used hearsay from the NTSB even though the NTSB says they did NOT talk to her and the MPD (in a news article) said the NTSB only gave the conditions of the crash.
So witness statements were supposedly CRITICAL to the determination of the cause of death. It’s just SWORN WITNESS STATEMENTS that weren’t so important...
Statements are MANDATED in HRS 841-3. Anyone with knowledge is required to report the facts they know about the circumstances of the death to the coroner with jurisdiction. Those are mandated witness statements - not up to the discretion of the coroner to seek out, but MANDATED for the witnesses to go to the coroner and present, under oath. Unless Fuddy is still alive and the witnesses know it, they could/should all be fined for failing to obey HRS 841-3.
841-3 does not mandate sworn statements. The passage you refer to is for people reporting a death that the coroner is not aware of. None of the witnesses in the crash had an obligation to report to the coroner because the police were on the scene. That’s why the penalty is only up to $100. Parking tickets in Maui can cost you more than that.
As for the coroner depending on witness statements, they do that all the time. Consider a traffic accident with a fatality. The police take witness statements. But they are not sworn statements. That doesn’t mean the coroner cannot considering them in their report.
AS to Dr. Harlin, we know that the Lanai crash involved a charter aircraft. Charter by the county for the five county employees. The County may have a standard budget item for chartering aircraft that all departments draw from. The Maui PD may not have budget item for such an expense.