CHAPTER I
LEGAL CRIMINAL
PROCEDURE
ENGLAND AND IRELAND
The Coroner‘s Court.—The office of coroner is mentioned in a charter in 925. Coroners were formerly chosen for life by the freeholders of the district, but their election is now in the hands of the County Councils. Their duties were first clearly pointed out by the Act 4 Edw. I. c. 2, 1275 (De officio coronatoris).
At the present time the duties of the coroner are chiefly to hold inquiry into the cause of death when there is any reason to doubt that death resulted from natural causes.
When death results from natural causes, and under ordinary conditions, the medical attendant is bound, under a penalty of forty shillings, to certify as to the cause. The registrar of deaths accepts such a certificate when accompanied by oral testimony given by a person who was present at the time of death, and issues a certificate accordingly, authorising the interment of the deceased.
Should conditions obtain to prevent the medical attendant from forming an opinion as to the cause of death, or which would lead him to infer that death did not take place from natural causes, he should notify the matter to the coroner. Such would be necessary if death were directly or indirectly due to accident, or if death occurred within a reasonable time after an accident, although due to some other cause, or if an accident happened to deceased during the course of a chronic illness, the accident, however, not being in itself necessarily fatal.
It would be necessary also to notify the coroner if the death took place under circumstances which, to the medical attendant, appeared suspicious, such as might arise from culpable neglect or cruelty on the part of persons in charge of the deceased. The same would apply to cases in which the cause of death was unknown. A great responsibility rests on the medical practitioner, in that he is compelled under a penalty to certify as to the cause of death; while if he do so without due consideration, or carelessly, he renders himself liable to censure or legal proceedings.
It may happen that in certain cases—for example, where an accident befell the deceased during the course of a lingering illness, and which in itself had no causal relations to the death—the doctor may be prone to certify the death as from the illness alone, taking no note of the accident; and pressure may be brought to bear upon him by the relations of the deceased to so certify and save them the trouble and publicity of an inquest. It should be remembered, however, that although the certificate be accepted by the registrar, and interment take place, the coroner, if informed of the matter, may order the body to be exhumed for the purposes of inquest.
There are coroners who, on receipt of information of death from uncertain causes, may elect, on evidence obtained apart from the medical practitioner, to notify the registrar authorising the interment without holding an inquest. The law, however, states that, “except upon holding an inquest, no order, warrant, or other document for the burial of the body shall be given by the coroner” (50 and 51 Vict.).