Inquests in England and Wales - Verdict

Verdict

The following verdicts are not mandatory but are strongly recommended:

  • Category 1
    • Natural causes
    • Industrial diseases
    • Dependency on drugs or non-dependent abuse of drugs
    • Want of attention at birth
    • Lack of care or self-neglect
  • Category 2
    • Suicide
    • Attempted or self-induced abortion
    • Accident or misadventure
    • Execution of sentence of death
    • Lawful killing (formerly "justifiable homicide")
    • Open verdict (cause of death unknown or unstated)
  • Category 3 - Unlawful killing
    • Murder
    • Manslaughter
    • Infanticide
  • Category 4
    • Still birth

In 2004, 37% of inquests recorded an outcome of death by accident / misadventure, 21% by natural causes, 13% suicide, 10% open verdicts, and 19% other outcomes.

If an open verdict is returned, the inquest can be reopened if new evidence is found and presented to the coroner.

Read more about this topic:  Inquests In England And Wales

Famous quotes containing the word verdict:

    “There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man’s title to fame. Only those books come down which deserve to last.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.”
    —Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)

    “Americans are notorious for looking to their children for approval. How our children turn out and what they think of us has become the “final judgment” on our lives. . . . We imagine that the rising generation is rendering history’s verdict on us. We may resent children simply because we expect a harsh judgment from them.”
    —C. John Sommerville (20th century)