Coroners - United States

United States

As of 2004, of the 2,342 death investigation offices in the United States, 1,590 are coroners offices. Of those, only 82 serve jurisdictions of more than 250,000 people. Qualifications for coroners are set by individual states and counties in the U.S. and vary widely. In many jurisdictions, little or no training is required, even though a coroner may overrule a forensic pathologist in naming a cause of death. A coroner may be elected or appointed. Some coroners hold office by virtue of holding another office: in Nebraska, the county district attorney is the coroner; in many counties in Texas, the Justice of the Peace may be in charge of death investigation; in other places, the sheriff is the coroner.

In North Carolina, many counties ceased having coroners when the state judicial system was overhauled in the late 1960s. Medical examiners were appointed with a requirement to be a licensed physician, often a pathologist or forensic pathologist. Like the office of sheriff, no formal training or education is required for NC coroners, but most have historically been morticians from local funeral homes. Coroners are still officials in at least ten of the state's 100 counties. Coroners are charged by law to investigate cause and manner of any death caused by default of another person (homicide) and may convene a coroner's inquest with a jury of six jurors taken from the county jury pool. Coroners may arrest persons suspected of homicide and can charge other lesser crimes discovered during the course of any such investigation or inquest. They can hold persons in contempt of court for failing to cooperate or comply with an inquest and may issue arrest or material witness warrants, in addition to the setting of bails. Coroners also are required to act as sheriff, should a vacancy in the office occur. They are required to submit a report to the medical examiner and district attorney for cases they investigate.

Because of the differences between jurisdictions, the terms "coroner" and "medical examiner" are defined differently from place to place. In some places, stringent rules require that the medical examiner be a forensic pathologist. In others, the medical examiner must be a physician, though not necessarily a forensic pathologist or even a pathologist. General practitioners, obstetricians, and other types of physicians with no experience in forensic medicine have become medical examiners. In others, such as Wisconsin, each county sets standards, and in some, the medical examiner does not need to meet any medical or educational qualifications of any type.

Not all U.S. jurisdictions use a coroner system for medicolegal death investigation—some are on a medical examiner system, others are on a mixed coroner-medical examiner system. In the U.S., the terms "coroner" and "medical examiner" vary widely in meaning by jurisdiction, as do qualifications and duties for these offices.

Local laws define the deaths a coroner must investigate, but most often include those that are sudden, unexpected, and have no attending physician—and deaths that are suspicious or violent. In some places in the United States, a coroner has other special powers, such as the ability to arrest the county sheriff.