Law Commons^™

Adjudicating Death: Professionals Or Politicians?, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

Variation exists in how death examinations take place in the United States. In some counties and states decisions about autopsies and the issuance of death certificates are made by a local coroner who often needs nothing more than a high school diploma to run for election to the job of coroner. In other counties and states, an appointed medical professional performs the death examination. We provide preliminary tests of the difference in performance between death examination offices run by appointed medical professionals compared with elected coroners. We find that death examiner offices in elected coroner states are less likely to …