They do have interesting jobs and some are even pretty good looking.  But there are four things they concentrate on:

1.  The Autopsy.  If the person dies outside a hospital, there may be questions about the death.  The Medical Examiner is the one who makes a decision whether an autopsy is conducted.  There are two things the doctor is looking for during an autopsy.  He tries to make an identification of the body.  Usually, the dead person is known by someone else, but often a body may be found with no identification or family.  Or sometime, in a disaster like a fire or bomb blast, the body cannot be readily identified.  The autopsy, hopefully, will identify who is the victim.  Also, at the autopsy, the Medical Examiner will gather evidence about what might have caused the death.

2.  The Science of Human Identification.  Here are techniques a Medical Examiner uses to make an identification of a dead body.  Fingerprints can be used—if the fingers can be printed.  In the case of a fire, for instance, the doctor may use dental records since teeth are some of the hardest materials in the human body.  Sometimes, it only takes one or two teeth for an identification to be made.  If there is the opportunity, DNA samples may be analyzed.  However, this process sometimes takes several weeks to complete.

3.  Cause of Death.  The final conclusion the Medical Examiner will answer is what caused the death?  Was it natural or a homicide?  Even though an autopsy opens the body for investigation, most of the clues about the cause of death are found on the outside.  For instance, gun shot wounds, trauma from a heavy object (hammer), car accidents with wounds to the body, and other marks like the abrasions from a rope around the neck can all point to the cause of death.  If the Medical Examiner decides the cause of death is not natural, legal issues come into play—is this a homicide and who did it?

4.  Time of Death.  You’ve seen on TV when the ME comes to the crime scene and announces the time of death within an exact time.  Real Medical Examiners laugh at this.  There are physical clues that can give an approximate time of death.  After death, the muscles in the body stiffen (rigor mortise) so the Medical Examiner can estimate time of death by the degree of stiffness.  The temperature of the body can also give clues.  Finally, if the body is lying on the ground the blood tends to pool on the lower side, which can give a clue as to how long the body has laid there.

Many local Medical Examiners offices are willing to give public tours.  Check them out!

The post What Do Medical Examiners Do? Part II appeared first on Colin T. Nelson.

Because of the expense involved in setting up and running crime labs, there usually aren’t many in any state.  The same is true of trained doctors to work as medical examiners.  In Minnesota where I practice criminal law, there are three crime labs.  Minneapolis (the largest city), Hennepin County (the largest county), and the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are the only three crime labs.  And only the largest counties can afford to hire and maintain trained medical examiners.

Although crime labs and medical examiners work together, they have different roles.  The crime lab will work on the physical evidence found at the crime scene.  The medical examiner will concentrate on the dead body found at the crime scene.  The labs can test for finger prints, footprints, fiber analysis, blood stains, tire tracks, firearm identification, bullet analysis, and, of course, DNA.  Medical examiners will use the following techniques in their work:

1.  Autopsy of the dead body

2.  Try to make a positive identification of the body

3.  Establish a cause of death to the victim

4.  Use science to determine the time of death.

Before I go into each of these steps, the history of medical examiners is funny in many ways.  In the 1200’s in England, the king established a “death tax.”  Today, we still retain that but now we call it an “estate tax.  It means the king would receive a tax payment based on the value of the dead person’s assets or estate.  Of course, many wealthy families tried to avoid this by hiding the dead body.  The king relied upon the county sheriffs to find the body and report back to the king.  Unfortunately, the sheriffs were often friends with the family and would give the king wrong information.

The kings decided to hire their own help and called them coroners, after the Latin word for crown.  The coroners found the bodies and determined if the person was really dead and how they died.  That way, the kings could collect the appropriate taxes.

In the new country of America, we adopted the same system of coroners, most of them elected in each county.  The problem was, like those in England, many of them weren’t trained to do the job.  They could be farmers, mechanics, carpenters, and maybe even young people.  (The youngest coroner in the United States was 18)  By the 1800s it was obvious the system wasn’t working well.  Instead of checking on dead people for taxes, now the job had become one of deciding the cause of death—was it an accident, natural causes, or was it murder?  So, by 1860 many states required that the coroner be a medical doctor.

Today, almost all states have laws that require the coroner (since named the Medical Examiner) to be a trained, forensic pathologist.  However, in Kentucky, they still have a constitutional requirement that the coroner cannot be elected if the candidate “has ever fought a duel.”

Next post, we’ll look at the work of a medical examiner.

The post What Do Medical Examiners Do? Part I appeared first on Colin T. Nelson.