ABSTRACT

Under certain circumstances, a coroner/medical examiner (C/ME) must further investigate a death by way of the autopsy. Of all the deaths that come under the C/ME’s jurisdiction, 40 to 50% of those deaths will be autopsied.1 An autopsy is performed to establish the cause and manner of death as dežned in Chapter 1, and to be dežned further in this chapter. It is a scientižc, systematic examination that usually takes one to two hours to complete. Complex autopsies may take several hours to complete and may include nextday examination or require several days of examination.