Coroner
A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death. The official may also investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within the coroner's jurisdiction.
Not to be confused with medical examiner.
In medieval times, English coroners were Crown officials who held financial powers and conducted some judicial investigations in order to counterbalance the power of sheriffs or bailiffs.
Depending on the jurisdiction, the coroner may adjudge the cause of death personally, or may act as the presiding officer of a special court (a "coroner's jury"). The term coroner derives from the same source as the word crown.
Duties and functions[edit]
Responsibilities of the coroner may include overseeing the investigation and certification of deaths related to mass disasters that occur within the coroner's jurisdiction. A coroner's office typically maintains death records of those who have died within the coroner's jurisdiction.
The additional roles that a coroner may oversee in judicial investigations may be subject to the attainment of suitable legal and medical qualifications. The qualifications required of a coroner vary significantly between jurisdictions and are described below under the entry for each jurisdiction. Coroners, medical examiners and forensic pathologists are different professions.[1] They have different roles and responsibilities.
Etymology and history[edit]
The office of coroner originated in medieval England[2][3][4] and has been adopted in many countries whose legal systems have at some time been subject to English or United Kingdom law. In Middle English, the word "coroner" referred to an officer of the Crown, derived from the French couronne and Latin corona, meaning "crown".[5]
The office of the coroner dates from approximately the 11th century, shortly after the Norman conquest of England in 1066.
The office of coroner was established by lex scripta in Richard I's England. In September 1194, it was decreed by Article 20 of the "Articles of Eyre" to establish the office of custos placitorum coronae (Latin for "keeper of the pleas of the Crown"), from which the word "coroner" is derived.[6][7] This role provided a local county official whose primary duty was to protect the financial interest of the Crown in criminal proceedings. The office of coroner is, "in many instances, a necessary substitute: for if the sheriff is interested in a suit, or if he is of affinity with one of the parties to a suit, the coroner must execute and return the process of the courts of justice."[8] This role was qualified in Chapter 24 of Magna Carta in 1215, which states: "No sheriff, constable, coroner or bailiff shall hold pleas of our Crown." "Keeping the pleas" was an administrative task, while "holding the pleas" was a judicial one that was not assigned to the locally resident coroner but left to judges who traveled around the country holding assize courts. The role of custos rotulorum or keeper of the county records became an independent office, which after 1836 was held by the lord-lieutenant of each county.
The person who found a body from a death thought sudden or unnatural was required to raise the "hue and cry" and to notify the coroner.[4] While coronial manuals written for sheriffs, bailiffs, justices of the peace and coroners were published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, handbooks specifically written for coroners were distributed in England in the eighteenth century.[9]
Coroners were introduced into Wales following its military conquest by Edward I of England in 1282 through the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284.
Going further back in time, we find that the term comes from antiquity, namely when the deceased was entrusted to the coronator, that is to a necrofor who prepared the corpse according to custom and, among other things, put a small laurel or myrtle wreath (Lat. corona or serta) on his head so that he might be accepted in glory in the afterlife. The use was already of ancient Greece and see e. g. Theophilus Christophorus Harles (Bionis smyrnaei and Moschi syracusani quae supersunt etc. P. 40. Erlangen, 1780), who quotes Euripides, Clement of Alexandria, Chionus of Heraclea and others in this regard; see also James Claude Upshaw Downs: "The origin of official death investigation is traced to at least 44 B.C. with the Greek Physician Antistius's examination of Julius Caesar (Fisher 1993; Gawande 2001). The history of the office of coroner extends well over a millennium and has seen major evolution etc." (Coroner and Medical Examiner in Handbook of Death and Dying ed. by Clifton D. Bryant. V. 1, p. 909. 2003.)
By region[edit]
Australia[edit]
Australian coroners are responsible for investigating and determining the cause of death for those cases reported to them. In all states and territories, a coroner is a magistrate with legal training, and is attached to a local court. Four states – New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia – also have state coroners and specialised coronial courts. In Tasmania, the Chief Magistrate also acts as the state coroner.[10]
Canada[edit]
According to Statistics Canada,[11]