Deaths a California coroner must investigate

The categories

• Violent, sudden or unusual deaths
• Unattended deaths, where no physician was in attendance
• Deaths where the deceased had not been seen by a physician within the period the statute specifies
• Deaths related to or following a known or suspected self-induced or criminal abortion
• Known or suspected homicide, suicide or accidental poisoning
• Deaths known or suspected to result in whole or in part from an accident or injury, old or recent
• Deaths from drowning, fire, hanging, gunshot, stabbing, cutting, exposure, starvation, acute alcoholism, drug addiction, strangulation or aspiration
• Deaths from accident or injury occurring in the course of employment
• Deaths associated with a known or alleged rape or crime against nature
• Deaths in prison or while under sentence
• Deaths from a contagious disease constituting a public hazard
• Deaths from criminal means, or under circumstances affording a reasonable ground to suspect them

Why this matters to a family

If the death falls into one of these categories, the coroner has an obligation. That obligation is the reason a record exists at all, and it is the reason an independent professional examined the circumstances before anyone had a financial interest in the answer.

It also means the family does not control the timeline. The body will be held as long as the investigation requires, and funeral arrangements have to work around that.

When the determination is wrong

A coroner’s manner-of-death determination is an opinion, not a verdict. It is made quickly, sometimes without information the family has, and it can be revisited.

A finding of accident where the facts support negligence, or of suicide where the circumstances suggest otherwise, is not the end of the inquiry. It can be challenged with evidence, and it frequently should be.