Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Coroner: A Position with More Power Than You Might Think

I’m reading The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist, and I thought this would make an interesting post. This isn’t my full book review yet. It’s just a piece that jumped out at me and took me by complete surprise.

The synopsis of the book is that it details the incarceration of two men in Mississippi in the early 1990s who were eventually exonerated. What made this particular part of the book so shocking to me was the role of the coroner.

The coroner has been portrayed in many television shows. CSI and Quincy, M.E. are just two examples. The position also has its roots in England, where the original role was established to investigate certain deaths, conduct inquiries, and protect the financial interests of the king. It wasn’t originally the medical position most of us associate with the title today.

Here’s the shocking part. I always thought this was a medical position. It wasn’t necessarily. In Mississippi in the early 1990s, a coroner did not need to be a doctor or hold a medical license. It was an elected position, and most people holding these jobs had little, if any, medical training. The book also points out that one of the qualifications was a belief in a deity. Quite a contrast to what you might expect from someone responsible for investigating a death!

Here is a true crime post that is also shocking

Say Nothing Review: A Gripping Story of the IRA, Murder, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland

The coroner had considerable authority over death investigations, including deciding whether an autopsy or further investigation was needed. The actual autopsy would be performed by a pathologist, but the decision to request one could rest with the local official. In the cases described in the book, this system created opportunities for questionable decisions, inadequate investigations, and serious abuses. The book also describes cases involving Black victims where violent deaths were not properly investigated or were classified in ways that failed to reflect the evidence.

It didn’t help that resources and oversight in a poor state like Mississippi were lacking. Other parts of the country had been moving toward medical examiner systems, with trained physicians and forensic pathologists taking responsibility for death investigations. Mississippi’s system, however, continued to rely heavily on local elected officials, with considerable differences in training and oversight.

Without getting too deep into the book, I was shocked by the level of corruption and the lack of professional qualifications in a position that could have such an impact on whether someone was investigated, charged, and ultimately convicted. The prosecutors and police could rely on questionable forensic findings to close a case, sometimes seemingly more interested in getting a conviction than finding the truth.

It will certainly make you reevaluate your thoughts on the death penalty. It did for me.

I’ll have more to say when I finish the book, but this was something I found fascinating and worth sharing.