CORONERS AND MEDICAL EXAMINERS.
BY
AUGUST BECKER,
Of the Buffalo (N. Y.) Bar.
POWERS AND DUTIES OF CORONERS AND MEDICAL EXAMINERS.
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.