Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic medicine and Toxicology. Vol. 1

by R. A. Witthaus; Tracy C. Becker

I. The Coroner and his Court.

Coroner an Ancient Officer.—The office of coroner is one of the most important and ancient known to the common law. A coroner, or coronator, was so called because he had principally to do with the pleas of the crown, or suit wherein the king was immediately concerned.[507] The office is first mentioned in a charter granted in the year 925 by King Athelstan, to the authorities of Beverley. The office as at present constituted was not clearly established until after the Norman conquest.

Under this head come the lord chief justice and puisne justices of the King’s Bench, who are supreme and sovereign coroners respectively.[508] The duties of the office of coroner involve questions of the greatest interest to society, to government, and to the rights and privileges of the individual citizen. The office has lost much of the honor and respect which formerly appertained to it. Its character and importance have been much diminished in latter times, making striking contrast with the high estimation it was held in by our ancestors in days when none but the gentry and knights of the shire were deemed eligible.

In fact so great was the dignity of this office in ancient times, that it was never presumed that coroners would condescend to be paid for their services.[509] They were chosen by all the freeholders of the county court for life or good behavior, and were liable to be removed for cause by the writ de coronatore exonerando. There were three kinds of coroners at common law: Virtute officii; virtute cartæ sive commissionis; and virtute electionis.[510] The office of coroner was brought to America by the colonists along with the institutions of the common law, and may be said to exist in the several States with all the common-law incidents, except so far as they may have been modified by statute. The present defined powers of coroners in Great Britain and the United States, unless modified by British statutes and American acts, are derived from the English Stat. de Officio Coronatoris, 4 Edward I., s. 2. Coroners virtute officii and virtute cartæ sive commissionis are unknown to our institutions. Here the office of coroner may be classed under the head of coroners virtute electionis. Generally speaking the coroner is a county officer.

Coroner’s Duties both Judicial and Ministerial.

By the common law his powers and duties are both judicial and ministerial. In his ministerial capacity he is merely a substitute for the sheriff, as when the sheriff is a party.[511] His powers and duties thereunder it is not the present purpose to state and define. His judicial authority relates to inquiries into cases of sudden death, by a jury of inquest, super visum corporis, or, as it is more commonly defined, an inquisition, with the assistance of a jury, over the body of any person who may have come to a sudden or violent death, or who may have died in prison.[512] It is not necessary that the death should be both violent and sudden, and that both these circumstances must concur to give the coroner jurisdiction. It is sufficient to give the coroner jurisdiction if the death occurs from any violence done to a person by another, although such violence may not have terminated the life of a party suddenly, and it is still the duty of the coroner to hold an inquest.[513] Indeed the presumption is that he has acted in good faith and on sufficient cause.[514] And so when several persons have been suddenly killed by the same violent cause, under circumstances proper to be inquired of by a coroner’s inquest, it is proper and necessary for the coroner, acting in good faith, to hold a separate inquest over each body.[515] A coroner’s inquest is a judicial investigation. The coroner cannot delegate his authority to any one. Neither can he appoint a deputy under the common law. He must act in person as any other judicial officer; and it may safely be said that a coroner has no power to appoint a deputy coroner, except where special provision is made therefor by statute.[516] In England, a coroner’s court is a court of record, and it has accordingly been held that trespass cannot be maintained for turning a person out of a room where the coroner is about to take an inquisition.[517] But in this country, it may safely be said that a coroner’s court is not one of record, but of inferior jurisdiction.[518] The performance of the functions of a coroner are judicial in their character; so judicial that he is protected under the principles which protect judicial officers from responsibility in a civil action brought by a private person. His proceedings amount to entries concerning matters of public interest, made under the sanction of an official oath, and in compliance or presumed compliance of the law.[519]

Of his Authority to Hold an Inquest.—His authority to hold an inquest is not confined to the body of a person who may have died within his territorial jurisdiction, but extends to all bodies brought within his jurisdiction, no matter where death may have taken place.[520] So in any case where, after burial, an inquest becomes necessary to determine the manner of the death of a person who, dying in one, is buried in another county, the coroner of the latter county is the proper officer to hold the inquest.[521] A coroner cannot hold a second inquest while the first is existing. As we have seen, in holding an inquest the coroner performs a judicial duty, and he is functus officio as soon as the verdict has been returned. He can hold no second inquest in the same case unless the first has been quashed by a court of competent jurisdiction, and a new inquiry ordered. He cannot set aside or quash his own inquest. If he were allowed to hold two inquests, not only might the greatest inconvenience arise from the inconsistent findings of the respective juries, but such a practice would be liable to great abuse, and as the object of the proceeding is merely preliminary, the main purpose being to ascertain whether it is probable that a crime has been committed, and to examine the facts and circumstances and preserve the evidence, all the ends of this inquiry are answered by one inquisition, super visum corporis. We believe no reported case is to be found in this country where a second inquisition has been held, the first remaining undischarged, nor is any such practice known to or recognized by our laws.[522]

The Inquest must be Held upon View of the Body.

The coroner can in no case hold an inquest except upon view of the body. This is jurisdictional and cannot be waived by any one. He is not bound to hold an inquest before burial of the body takes place. When it has been buried, and he believes an inquest necessary, he is vested with authority to have the body disinterred and hold his inquest, and if necessary direct a post-mortem examination to be made, but after having done so, he must cause it to be reburied.[523] Deep interests are involved in the proper discharge of the duties of coroners; the character, liberty, and perhaps the life of a citizen accused of crime on the one hand, and on the other the aiding of public justice in establishing the guilt and securing the punishment of the actual criminal. Many of the questions which fall within the scope of a coroner’s inquisition are of an intricate and most perplexing character, a correct solution of which can only be arrived at by minds the best instructed and habituated to their investigation. In many cases some of these questions can be satisfactorily settled by the evidence of persons having cognizance more or less direct of the facts; in others, however, they can only be solved by the facts deduced from pathological anatomy, and other circumstances connected with the dead body, the cause of the extinction of life in which is the subject of the inquest.

In Massachusetts Office of Coroner Abolished.—Indeed, in Massachusetts the office of coroner was abolished in 1877, and the governor was invested with power, and it is his duty, to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the council, able and discreet men, learned in the science of medicine, to be medical examiners, whose duties are to make examinations as provided in the statute upon the view of the dead bodies of such persons only as are supposed to have come to their death by violence.[524]

Coroner may Employ Professional Skill.—A thorough examination aided by professional skill is in general absolutely necessary to the proper administration of justice. It would no doubt be strange if a coroner had no authority to pledge the responsibility of the county for the compensation of all auxiliary services which are necessary to the proper execution of his office, and which he can by no other means command; for instance, when his duty requires him to disinter a body, he cannot be expected to do it with his own hands, or by hands paid for with his means. Indeed it has been said that, in this enlightened age, a coroner who would consign to the grave the body over which he had held an inquest, without availing himself of the lights which the medical science has placed within his reach, would in most cases fall short of what his official duty requires.[525] It is the generally accepted view of the law now that it is the duty of a coroner holding an inquest super visum corporis to avail himself of professional skill and aid, and his contract will bind the county to the payment of a reasonable compensation for making a post-mortem examination.[526]

Post-Mortem Examination.

Whether such examination should take place before the coroner has empanelled a jury seems to be an open question. We would venture the opinion that it should not, inasmuch as the jury ought to see and view the body in the same condition, as near as may be, as it was when found, and not after it has been mutilated, as it must need be by a post-mortem examination. It is, however, settled that the post mortem should not be in the presence of the jury, and that they are to be instructed by the testimony of the physicians who are designated by the coroner to make the examination.[527] The coroner’s right to dissect the dead body of a human being does not extend to all cases. Such a power could be wielded with the most injurious effects upon a community. His power to dissect is confined to those cases where he is authorized by law to hold an inquest upon the body. But a post-mortem examination, conducted by surgeons employed by a coroner holding an inquest, is not a part of the inquest in such a sense as that every citizen has a right freely to attend it. At common law it was essential to the validity of a coroner’s inquisition that the jury should view the body. And so is our law. But it was never required that the body should be dissected in any case. It is discretionary with the coroner to cause a dissection to be made, and to select the surgeons. He has also a discretion to determine whether any person, and what persons, may be present besides the surgeons. Not even the jurors have a right to witness the examination. They are to be informed of what it discloses by the testimony of the surgeons. Indeed, no person has a right to be present at the post-mortem examination upon the ground that he is suspected of having caused the death. He loses no legal right by being excluded. He has no right to dissect the body. If the coroner’s jury pronounce him guilty, the inquest, like the indictment of a grand jury, simply makes him liable to arrest.[528]

Massachusetts Statutory Provisions.

The statute law of Massachusetts has already been referred to. It has abolished the office of coroner and in its place put medical examiners, so called, who are presumed to be learned in the science of medicine. Their powers, however, are not co-extensive with those of coroners. A medical examiner cannot hold an inquest. He cannot hold an autopsy without being thereto authorized in writing by the district attorney, mayor, or selectmen of the district, city, or town where a dead body lies. He can only upon receiving notice that there has been found, or is lying within the county, the dead body of a person who is supposed to have come to his death by violence, repair to the place where such body lies, view and take charge of the same. If he deems a further examination necessary and is authorized so to do, he must make an autopsy in the presence of two or more discreet persons, whose attendance he may compel by subpœna if necessary, and he must then carefully reduce or cause to be reduced to writing every fact and circumstance tending to show the condition of the body and the cause and manner of death, together with the names and addresses of the witnesses. If he deems it necessary, he may employ a chemist to aid in the examination of the body or of substances supposed to have caused or contributed to the death,[529] the record of which he must subscribe.[530] Such an autopsy does not, however, upon the trial of an accused render other competent evidence, as to the condition and appearance of the dead body at the time of the autopsy, inadmissible.[531] The autopsy may be followed by an inquest held, not by the examiner, but by a justice of the district, police, or municipal court for the district or city in which the body lies, or a trial justice. One of these functionaries must hold an inquest upon being notified by a medical examiner that in his opinion a death was caused by violence, and after hearing the testimony draw up and sign a report and issue process for apprehension of a person charged by the report with the commission of an offence, if he is not in custody.[532] Even though a medical examiner reports that a death was not caused by violence, and the district attorney or the attorney-general is of a contrary opinion, either one may, notwithstanding such report, direct an inquest to be held in accordance with the provisions of the statute.[533]

New York’s Statutory Provisions.

In New York the powers and duties of coroners are defined by statute. Coroners in the city of New York are governed by a special act relating to that city exclusively. For the State at large it is provided that whenever a coroner is informed that a person has been killed or dangerously wounded by another, or has suddenly died under such circumstances as to afford a reasonable ground to suspect that his death has been occasioned by the act of another by criminal means, or has committed suicide, he must go to the place where the person is, and forthwith inquire into the cause of the death or wounding, and summon not less than nine nor more than fifteen persons, qualified by law to serve as jurors, if such death or wounding be of a criminal nature, to appear before him forthwith at a specified place, to inquire into the cause of death or wound, and if it appears from the evidence taken or during the inquisition, that any person or persons are chargeable with the killing or wounding, or that there is probable cause to believe that any person or persons are chargeable therewith, and if they are not in custody the coroner must forthwith issue a warrant for the arrest of the person or persons charged with such killing or wounding, who must be arraigned before the coroner for examination, and the coroner has power to commit the person or persons so arrested to await the result of the inquisition. A coroner is disqualified from acting as such in any case where the person killed or dangerously wounded is a co-employee with the coroner of any person or persons, association or corporation, or where it appears that the killing or wounding has been occasioned, directly or indirectly, by the employer of the coroner.[534] It is further provided that whenever a convict shall die in any State prison, it shall be the duty of the inspector having charge of the prison and of the warden, physician, and chaplain of the prison, if they or either of them shall have reason to believe that the death of the convict arose from any other than ordinary sickness, to call upon the coroner having jurisdiction to hold an inquest upon the body of such deceased convict.[535] The New York Criminal Code further provides that when six or more of the jurors appear, they must be sworn by the coroner to inquire who the person was, and when, where, and by what means he came to his death or was wounded as the case may be, and into the circumstances attending the death or wounding, and to render a true verdict thereon according to the evidence offered to them or arising from the inspection of the body.[536] The coroner may issue subpœnas for and summon and examine as witnesses every person who in his opinion, or that of any of the jury, has any knowledge of the facts; and he must summon as a witness a surgeon or physician, who must, in the presence of the jury, inspect the body, and give a professional opinion as to the cause of the death or wounding.[537] The jury, after inspecting the body and hearing the testimony, must render their verdict, and certify it by an inquisition in writing, signed by them, and setting forth who the person killed or wounded is, and when, where, and by what means he came to his death or was wounded, and if he were killed or wounded, or his death were occasioned by the act of another by criminal means, who is guilty thereof, in so far as by such inquisition they have been able to ascertain.[538] The testimony of the witnesses examined before the coroner’s jury must be reduced to writing by the coroner, or under his direction, and must be forthwith filed by him, with the inquisition, in the office of the clerk of the court of sessions of the county, or of a city court having power to inquire into the offence by the intervention of a grand jury.[539]

If, however, the defendant be arrested before the inquisition can be filed, the coroner must deliver it with the testimony to the magistrate before whom the defendant is brought.[540] If the jury find that the person was killed or wounded by another under circumstances not excusable or justifiable by law, or that his death was occasioned by the act of another by criminal means, and the party committing the act be ascertained by the inquisition and is not in custody, the coroner must issue a warrant signed by him with his name of office, for the arrest of the person charged.[541] The coroner has power to compel the attendance of a witness and testify, and he may punish a witness for disobedience, as upon a subpœna issued by a magistrate.[542] The coroner’s warrant may be served in any county; and the officer serving it must proceed thereon, in all respects, as upon a warrant of arrest on an information, except that when served in another county it need not be indorsed by a magistrate of that county.[543] When the defendant is brought before the coroner, he must proceed to examine the charge contained in the inquisition or information, and hold the defendant to answer, or discharge him therefrom, in all respects as upon a warrant of arrest on an information.[544]