ABSTRACT
Some people have complained about coroners and wonder why they are allowed to conduct death investigations when they have little or no training or experience in medicine or science (Figure 10.1). Part of the reason may have to do with the history of death investigation of which coroners were an early part, and part of it has to do with the supply of trained and qualified people. Coroners have been around since the year 1194 when the English
Articles of Eyre
were written, which required that three knights and a clerk attend each death (Figure 10.2). These persons were known as
custos placitorum coronae
— Keepers of the Pleas of the Crown. The Latin word for crown is
corona
, and the word
coroner
is derived from this term. A major task of the “coroners” back in the twelfth century was to ensure that the proper portion of a dead person’s assets were secured for the crown. Thus, originally, coroners served somewhat of the same function as the Internal Revenue Service serves today. They also, however, made inquiries to determine the cause and circumstances of death and enforced the
lex murdrorum
, a law prohibiting homicide and the origin of today’s word
murder
(Figure 10.3). Through the years, the functions of coroners changed more toward actually
investigating the cause and circumstances of death. When the English settlers came to North America in the 1600s, they brought the coroner system with them. Thus the early death investigation practices in this country were similar to those in England. Laws were gradually written that paralleled the English system, and thus coroners became an integral part of death investigation in the U.S. It was not until the mid to late 1800s in Massachusetts and Maryland that evolution began toward the medical investigation of death. There had been recognition in England of the need for medical knowledge in the investigation of deaths, and a coroners’ act passed in the late 1800s required that a physician at least attend all deaths to ascertain medical information related to death investigation.
