Tag Archives: police

Jurisdiction

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Jurisdiction is… interesting. If you watch cop shows or legal dramas, it’s a term you’ve heard thrown around, yet few people have a firm handle on what it means. Today I’m going to fix that.

At its most basic level, jurisdiction simply refers to the legal authority to handle a particular case. Law enforcement agencies have particular jurisdictions, as do courts. Technically, jurisdiction refers to a particular subject matter—that is, whether an agency has power to deal with a particular type of case. A small claims court does not have jurisdiction to hear a murder case. Your local police department does not have jurisdiction to make arrests for federal immigration offenses.

In practice, however, we often use jurisdiction in a geographic sense as well. The LA County Sheriff’s Department has jurisdiction in LA County—and not, say, in Kern County.

Jurisdiction is a complicated issue in the US because our legal system is fragmented. While most countries have a single (federal) court system and a single (federal) law enforcement agency, we don’t. We have state and federal courts, some of them with quite specific areas of authority (such as military cases or bankruptcy cases). And we have many thousands of police agencies at local, state, and federal levels.

Jurisdictions can overlap. Imagine I kidnap someone in Wyoming and drag him to my hometown, only to be caught on the nearby university campus. In that case, dozens of law enforcement agencies might be involved, including the FBI (a federal agency) and many state and local police departments. Just from my own area, my city police, the Highway Patrol, and the campus police might be there (the latter two are both state agencies). It can be confusing! And while agencies very frequently cooperate with one another, sometimes friction or rivalry may exist.

The takeaway for you as an author? If a police department or court is dealing with a case in your book, make sure they have proper jurisdiction. That may require research to determine who handles what, but you definitely don’t want to get it wrong.

 

 

High-speed chases

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Not long ago, my husband was watching a police chase via live feed on Facebook. The chase covered a long distance, all the way from Inglewood (near central LA) to Kern County, 92 miles to the north. But what’s interesting about this case was the time it took: 2 hours.

Now, I’ve made that drive quite a few times myself—albeit not in a stolen Mercedes—and yes, when traffic is heavy it can certainly take that long. And when you have two little kids in the car with you who decide they need to pee with great frequency? It can take even longer. But you’d think someone eluding the police would manage better than 45 mph, right?

We’ve all seen exciting high-speed chases. I have two fictional movie favorites: Blues Brothers and Raising Arizona. And in real life, high-speed chases do happen. But they’re risky to the officers involved and to innocent bystanders. One study says that since 1979, over 11,000 people have been killed in high-speed chases. Over 5000 of those people were non-violators and 139 were police officers. Years ago, one of my students was doing a police ride-along when other cars got involved in a high-speed pursuit. The fleeing suspect ran over woman and her baby as she pushed a stroller through a crosswalk.

Not only have innocent people died or been injured during high-speed pursuits, but sometimes police departments get slapped with lawsuits by people who were injured or received property damage.

For these reasons, some agencies have banned high-speed pursuits completely. They’ve determined that it’s better to let a bad guy go free than risk everyone else. Most agencies haven’t gone that far, but they usually have policies in place that restrict high-speed pursuits to situations where they consider the suspect a danger to others. They may, however, use helicopters, drones, and other technology to keep tabs on a suspect in a low-speed chase. Or they can just follow him slowly, as happened most famously when OJ Simpson was arrested. In the case my husband was watching, the suspect was apparently wanted initially for trashing a hotel room.

The truth about science and crime

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Every crime show ever.

Setting—messy crime scene

Attractive Detective 1: Wow, look at all this blood and semen so helpfully spread all over the crime scene!

Attractive Detective 2: I will collect it and rush it to the crime lab, pronto!

5 minutes later,  setting—gleaming hi-tech crime lab

AD 2, handing evidence to Attractive Lab Tech: This case is super important. We need results pronto!

ALT: Right on it, Detective.

5 minutes later

ALT: Here you go, Detective. Yep, all the DNA definitely belongs to Slimy Suspect. I’m 100% sure.

AD2: Great, thank you!

5 minutes later, setting—courtroom

Stern Judge: I sentence you, Slimy Suspect, to life in prison!

How many times have you watched TV shows with essentially this scenario? There are many inaccuracies here, but today I’m going to focus on one, involving that crime lab.

On TV, the lab gets the evidence and analyzes it, and the suspect promptly finds himself whisked off to jail. In reality, though, evidence analysis takes time. Most of this is due to high demand and limited capacity. It’s estimated that the current backlog may include well over 350,000 cases. And it’s not just DNA from crime scenes, but also drug testing and evidence from rape kits. Depending on the jurisdiction and the case, it may take over a year to get results back from the lab.

Time isn’t the only problem. Labs range in quality and not all are accredited. Their employees also vary in accuracy. There have been numerous reported cases of lab employees making errors in their work, either by accident or on purpose.

And even the best employees of the best labs can’t always get wonderful results. Forensic evidence can degrade or be contaminated. To give a personal example of this, when I was in college and working at a deli, I was robbed at gunpoint. When the police came, they dusted the counter for prints, but we all knew that was a pretty useless activity. Over the course of the day, dozens of people had touched that counter, so distinguishing the robber’s prints from everyone else’s would have been impossible. (They never caught anyone for the crime.)

And even when the evidence is in great shape, an analysis can never deliver absolute certainty. The best it can do is offer a probability of a match. And if the (innocent) suspect has an evil identical twin, he may be out of luck.

Finally it should be noted that DNA and similar evidence isn’t present at most crime scenes. If someone robs a bank, she’s probably not going to leave behind blood or anything else that is an obvious source of DNA evidence.

So those pretty detectives and lab techs might make for fun TV viewing, but they have little to do with law enforcement reality.

Consent

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Johnny was trying really hard to follow the rules of the road, but when he glanced in his rearview mirror, his stomach clenched. Flashing red and blue lights. Shit.

He pulled to the side of the highway, rolled down his window, and cut the engine. And when the cop walked to his window, Johnny even managed a shaky smile. “Good evening, officer.”

The cop didn’t smile back. “License, registration, insurance.”

Johnny handed over the documents and watched as the cop inspected them. Then the officer grunted softly and handed them back. “Everything looks in order. But you were following that other car pretty closely. It’s important to maintain a safe stopping distance. I could cite you for that.”

“Uh…. Sorry?”

“All right. I’ll let it go this time. But be more careful.”

Johnny’s lungs loosened enough for him to breathe. “Thanks, officer. I appreciate it. I’ll definitely be more careful.”

“Good.” The cop started to step away, then stopped and turned back to the window. “You don’t mind if I take a look in your trunk, do you?”

Trying not to choke, Johnny clearly pictured the ten pounds of methamphetamine currently sitting in the trunk. “Uh….”

So what can Johnny do?

Let’s begin by establishing one important thing: unless there are additional circumstances I haven’t mentioned in that scenario, the cop doesn’t have legal authority to search the trunk without consent. The Supreme Court has held that search warrants are virtually never needed for automobile searches, but law enforcement still generally needs probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains evidence or contraband. The fact that Johnny was following another car too closely doesn’t tell us anything about what may be in his vehicle; it certainly doesn’t give the cop probable cause.

So if the cop can’t force a search, is he out of luck? Nope. He can still ask Johnny for permission to look. That’s called a consent search, and police can ask for them any time they want to. But because it is a consent search, Johnny can refuse. His refusal alone won’t be enough to establish probable cause for the search. So if Johnny says no, the cop needs to let him continue on his journey. Lucky Johnny!

But here’s the rub—the cop doesn’t need to tell Johnny he has the right to refuse. This differentiates searches from interrogations, where the Miranda decision holds that suspects do have to be informed of their rights. Most people don’t know these details, and police often strongly hint that the subject needs to comply.

This tactic works well. Police find drugs via consent searches all the time, as in this recent example. Or this one. Why on Earth would someone with $3 million worth of meth in the trunk allow police to search his car? Because he thinks he has no choice.

One other twist on this situation. After the initial traffic stop, something might raise the officer’s suspicions that something is going on. Maybe the driver appears unduly nervous. If the cop has reasonable suspicion (which is less than probable cause) that the car contains something it shouldn’t, he can briefly extend the detention. This can last long enough to bring in a drug-sniffing dog and allow the dog to smell the car’s the exterior. If the dog alerts, that gives enough evidence to constitute probable cause, and now police can conduct a full search.

As for Johnny? I’d advise him to just say no.

 

Are you a cop?

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Lola batted her eyelashes and smiled at the man. “How about a date?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. How much?”

After a brief hesitation, she countered with a question of her own. “You a cop?”

“Are you kidding? No way. I hate pigs.”

“Okay. You give me a hundred bucks and I’ll rock your world.”

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “Guess my world’s gonna stay steady tonight. Hands behind your back.”

“Hey! You lied! You can’t do that!”

“Already did. Now, you want me to recite your rights or you wanna do it for me?”

Is Lola right? Did Officer Smith entrap her when he lied about his identity?

Nope.

The police are allowed to lie. They do it all the time when working undercover or performing sting operations. I don’t know when or how the rumor started that they have to tell the truth when they’re asked whether they’re cops, but it’s entirely false. Police can lie about other things too. It would frequently be hard for them to do their jobs if they had to be honest all the time.

Lying does not constitute entrapment. In order for someone to successfully use the entrapment defense, she must prove that police enticed her to perform an illegal act she wasn’t otherwise inclined to do. If that undercover cop offered people a million bucks to sleep with him, a lot of people might be tempted even though they’d never previously considered prostitution. In Lola’s case, however, it’s only a hundred dollars. Plus she initiated the exchange, which is pretty good evidence that she was predisposed.

There are some limits to what police can lie about. If a suspect invokes her Miranda rights and asks to speak to a lawyer, the cops can’t grab a random colleague in a suit, put him in the interrogation room, and have him tell the suspect he’s an attorney.

One frequent lie used to good effect by police happens when there are two or more suspects. Each is questioned separately, and each is (falsely) told that his colleague had confessed and ratted him out. Suspects under those circumstances often confess in a vain attempt to save themselves.

An urban legend says that police have pretended that a Xerox machine is a lie detector, as shown in this scene from The Wire. I don’t know if that’s ever really happened, but police often do get creative.

 

You have the right to remain silent

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In 1963, a young laborer with a substantial criminal history was arrested for kidnapping and raping a 17-year-old girl. After two hours of interrogation, he confessed. But when his case went to trial, his lawyer argued that because the police didn’t tell the perpetrator that he had the right to refuse to talk and the right to a lawyer, his confession should be thrown out. It was, the lawyer argued, not truly voluntary. Eventually the US Supreme Court agreed, holding that custodial interrogation is inherently coercive. In order to counteract some of that coercion, before suspects can be interrogated while in custody, they must be informed of their rights. That young laborer’s name? Ernesto Miranda.

We all know what the Miranda rights are. You can probably recite them. Here’s the language that sets them out in the decision itself:

The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he/she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says will be used against that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he/she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he/she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent him/her.

Despite our familiarity with this ruling, many people hold misconceptions about it. So here are some important things to know:

  • The rights don’t need to be recited exactly in the words the Court used. There is no specific required wording as long as the main points are clearly and adequately covered.
  • Research has questioned the extent to which children, English learners, and some of the disabled understand the meaning of the warnings.
  • Even if a suspect has been warned, a confession may be inadmissible if extra coercion was applied.
  • A suspect can waive his Miranda rights and choose to speak to police without an attorney present. An astonishing percentage of suspects—over 80%—do so.
  • Police only need to give the warning prior to custodial interrogation. This means no warning is necessary if the suspect isn’t in custody—if, for example, police have briefly detained her on the street or at home to ask a few questions. And it doesn’t apply if police have no intention of interrogating the suspect. I know someone who was detained overnight in the Alameda County drunk tank for being obnoxiously drunk at a baseball game. When they let him out the next morning, he loudly complained that they had never Mirandized him. I pointed out that the last thing they wanted to do was interrogate him—they wanted him to shut up, in fact—so they didn’t have to read him his rights.
  • SCOTUS has carved out a number of exceptions to the Miranda requirement, the most important being the public safety doctrine.

As for Miranda himself, he was retried and reconvicted even without his confession. Four years after he was paroled, he was killed in a bar fight. I assume that upon arrest, the assailant was read his Miranda rights.

I fall to pieces….

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Today’s subject may seem a bit esoteric, yet it’s vital to understanding the US criminal justice system. The subject is fragmentation.

Most countries have a national system of criminal justice. A single set of laws, police, courts, and corrections, all administered at the federal level. Oh, but not us. We can blame the English, who brought with them a complicated system built from their history as many tiny and diverse kingdoms unwillingly united under the Norman Conquest. We can blame our own history too—separate colonies, a long and shifting frontier, and varying views of the role of federalism. What we ended up with was a tangle.

Let’s look at law enforcement, for example.

Suppose the police were called to the street outside my home here in California. Those police might be my local city police. Because I live near a university campus, they might also be campus police (a state agency). They might be sheriff’s deputies—a county agency. They might work for any one of a variety of specialized state agencies, including highway patrol, fish and wildlife, park service, firearms, gambling patrol, department of motor vehicles, and many more. They might work for one of many federal law enforcement agencies. FBI. ATF. DEA. Customs. US Marshals. FAA. Secret Service. And lots, lots more. Under very specific circumstances, that cop outside my door may even work for the international agency, INTERPOL.

There are currently over 17,000 separate police agencies in the United States, with roughly two-thirds of them being municipal (city) police departments.

And that’s just the police! We also have courts at the federal and state (and sometimes local) level. We have laws at varying levels too. And corrections may be local, state, or federal. And you know what? Each agency has different rules and policies.

This is the reason behind my frequent warning to check with your relevant jurisdiction before writing. Just because one agency does things a certain way or you’ve seen it done a particular way on TV doesn’t mean that’s how it’s done in your setting. I’ve seen authors mess this up many times. It throws me out of the story and indicates sloppy research.

Such a complex situation has bad points and good. On the downside, it leads to inconsistencies and misunderstandings. It sometimes causes friction between members of different agencies. Sometimes agencies may even have trouble communicating with one another due to different technology or policies or resources. Or plain old stubbornness.

I should note, though, that contrary to what you’ve seen in movies, agencies generally cooperate with each other. The other day, a morning car wreck happened along a busy street near the university, junior high, high school, and elementary school. And it happened right when everyone was dropping kids off or going to work. My city police responded, but so did campus police and the highway patrol (which has jurisdiction on all public byways), and they worked together to deal with the problem. Similarly, many of the small towns in my area have limited resources for dealing with homicides, which are rare. So when one does occur, they have an agreement that allows them to call in homicide detectives from our county’s largest city.

Fragmentation has a major upside, which is probably the main reason it has continued so long here. That’s the possibility of local control. Washington, DC, doesn’t know what’s going on in my small city and mostly doesn’t care. Solutions and policies crafted in Washington may not be very effective in California’s Central Valley. But our local police can be very responsive to our particular concerns. They know, for instance, that traffic becomes problematic during the first couple weeks of the school year, and they increase patrols near schools (One particular motorcycle cop must write dozens of tickets daily. I always see him pulling people over.).

Now, some could argue that federal systems could also understand local issues if they had local administrative offices. But if my community is unhappy with our police, we can talk to our city council members and have them put pressure on the chief to fix things—or be fired. That couldn’t happen as easily with a national system. Of course, local control can be a serious problem too, depending on who’s doing the controlling. Historically, for example, some local police departments not only didn’t interfere with violence and intimidation of African American residents but may even have encouraged and participated in those acts. This has sometimes resulted in federal agencies stepping in.

Fragmentation can also be a challenge or a boon to writers. As I’ve said (many, many times!) it requires careful, specific research. Yet it can also be a source of wonderful plot points. You know…. Jaded federal agent from the Big City comes to the Small Town to investigate a crime. Romance (or dastardly deeds, or humor) ensues. Or hapless hero assumes what’s legal back home is also legal on vacation, but it’s not. Romance or dastardly deeds or humor ensue.

 

Book ’em

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I used to watch Hawaii Five-O when I was a little kid. It wasn’t my favorite show of its type—that spot was reserved for Emergency! (ah, Randolph Mantooth!)—but I do remember two things well about the Five-O. One, of course, is that catchy theme song. If that’s not the top TV show theme of all time, it’s certainly in the top five. The other thing I remember was Jack Lord’s oft-repeated phrase, Book ’em, Danno.

But what does that mean?

As the name suggests, booking is the process of adding a suspect to the books—that is, formally entering him or her into the criminal justice system. It generally happens after a person has been taken into custody—arrested—but may sometimes occur after a citation, when the person will not remain in custody. Once upon a time, the suspect’s information was recorded in an actual ledger book. Nowadays it’s all electronic.

A number of things happen during booking. The suspect’s name and other personal information are recorded, as are a few details about the criminal charges. Their mug shots are taken—a practice police have been following since roughly the 1840s. The suspect gives up all personal property, which is recorded and stored until his release, and usually gives up his own clothes for lovely jail attire. He’s fingerprinted. Eventually those prints will be entered into a national database. He’s screened for any physical or psychological ailments, and jail staff will conduct a body cavity search to check for contraband. Jail staff will check the system to see if he has any outstanding warrants. And then they’ll ask him a bunch of questions—not necessarily pertinent to the crime—to determine how big a risk he is and where to classify him in the jail. A DNA sample may be taken. In some jurisdictions, bail and a court date will be set. He’ll be given the chance to call a lawyer, family member, or bail bondsman.

If the suspect is low risk, he may be released on his own recognizance at this point. That means he goes free after promising to appear in court. Or he might make bail. But if he’s a big flight risk, he won’t be granted bail—and even if bailing out is an opportunity, he might not have the money for a bail bondsman. In that case he’s going to be locked up. He’ll be given some kind of orientation to the jail rules, either by an officer or via video. Then he’s going to spend some time behind bars.

Booking is not a fast process. Depending on the jurisdiction and whether it’s been a busy night, the whole thing could take four hours or more.

Incidentally, once someone is booked, that arrest record is permanent. Even if the charges are later dropped or he’s found not guilty, the arrest record is there forever. And his fingerprints (and maybe DNA) are in the system, ready to be discovered years later by an author seeking a clever plot point.

 

 

 

Deadly force

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Today’s topic has been on a lot of minds lately: police use of deadly force. I’m not going to discuss the hottest issue, which has to do with aspects of racial bias. I’m also not going to address the equally important issue of deadly violence against police. Instead, I’m going to tackle a basic question: When can police use deadly force?

It’s weird—how many jobs allow a person to take another person’s life without going to prison? I think even the most ardent pacifist or civil libertarian would agree that police officers should be allowed to use deadly force under some circumstances. And even the most hard-nosed tough-on-crime person would agree that we ought to have clear and strict standards for the use of deadly force.

The old rule, going back to Jolly Olde England, was that police could use deadly force to stop a fleeing felon. But that rule evolved back in the days when the force in question was coming from an arrow or a blade, not a semiautomatic rifle. And back then, all felonies brought a potential death sentence.

The US Supreme Court narrowed the rule in 1985 due to a case in which an officer shot and killed an unarmed 15-year-old burglar who was trying to climb a fence. In Tennessee v. Garner, the court held that police could use deadly force to stop a fleeing felon only when that force is necessary to stop him and police reasonably believe the suspect poses a serious threat to police or others. In other words, if cops have a choice between shooting an unarmed suspect whom they don’t believe is dangerous or letting him escape, they need to let him escape.

Even when someone is not suspected of a felony or isn’t fleeing, police can use deadly force if they reasonably believe the person poses  a serious risk to them or to others. This isn’t actually a special rule for police; it’s just a specialized application of the general self-defense rules.

But all this raises two questions. First, what is deadly force? Basically it’s any force that could reasonably lead to a person’s death. Firearms are always going to count as deadly force, even if the person using them attempts to aim for non-lethal injury. Even the best sharpshooter can’t always hit an exact spot on a moving target, and anyway, a person could potentially die from shock or blood loss even if not hit in a vital organ. Besides, as a matter of practice, police are taught to aim for the center of the body because it’s an easier target than the limbs.

You don’t need a gun for lethal force, though. A blade would certainly do it. Explosives. A motor vehicle. Or a blunt instrument like a club or stick, depending on how it was used. Even a sharp pencil could be deadly force if it’s aimed at an eye or throat.

Sometimes other kinds of force can unexpectedly turn deadly. Choke holds, for example, aren’t supposed to be lethal but have resulted in many deaths, which is why quite a few police departments prohibit them. Some people have died from pepper spray. Several years ago, police in a town near me used a Taser on a motorcycle thief—who promptly caught on fire, apparently due to spilled gasoline. The suspect wasn’t injured, but he could have been. For the most part, things like pepper spray and Tasers are not considered deadly force even in the rare occasions when someone dies.

The second question is what happens when a cop thinks a person is dangerous but is mistaken. This happens all the time. It’s what happened to Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old who Baltimore police shot and killed because he was carrying a realistic-looking toy gun. It’s what the police officers claim happened in the case of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot in Ferguson, Missouri. And the rule is pretty clear: as long as police honestly and reasonably believe they or others are at serious risk, they’re justified in using deadly force, even if it turns out they were mistaken. Of course this leads to to a lot of situations where police say, “I thought he was going for a gun,” while others question police credibility. Some researchers also suggest that stereotypes about race and gender can play a part in police officers’ split-second determinations about whether someone is dangerous. That’s a valid issue of concern, but it’s a conversation for another day.

 

Coroners

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I’ve been meaning to post about coroners, and since I recently toured my local coroner’s facility, now seems like an appropriate time.

Like sheriffs, coroners can be traced back to shortly after the Norman Conquest of England—roughly the 11th century. As the name suggests, coroners were appointed by the crown and charged with protecting royal financial interests in local issues. For example, when someone died, fees might be due to the king. Sheriffs often couldn’t be trusted in these matters because they had a personal interest—or were corrupt. To make coroners more immune to temptation, they were required to be wealthy. They had several duties, and one of them was investigating causes of death. Not so much to see wrongdoers punished as to make sure the crown got its due. The particular task of finding cause of death was eventually imported to coroners in the United States.

In the US today, coroners are often affiliated with or a subdivision of the local sheriff’s department, although they may also be part of the district attorney’s office or other agencies. And here’s another place where I have to repeat this warning: laws, policies, and procedures vary a great deal across jurisdictions. If you want to be accurate about a specific jurisdiction, consult the authorities there.

The titles of the people involved can be confusing and do vary. Some jurisdictions use the term medical examiner—and that person, unlike the coroner, is usually a physician. The autopsy itself is conducted by a physician, usually a forensic pathologist, who’s assisted by autopsy technicians. Other professionals may also get involved when needed, such as experts in forensic odontology (teeth), anthropology (bones, mostly), and so on.

Coroners are usually called in under specific circumstances of death. My local policy is typical. The coroner will investigate cases of suspected homicide or suicide, cases involving accidents, cases with no known family, and unaccompanied deaths (when someone dies alone) where a doctor can’t confidently sign off on cause of death. If a person dies while receiving treatment at a hospital or other facility, the coroner usually won’t get involved because the doctors there already know why the person died. Even if a person dies elsewhere—at home, in public, at work—a coroner isn’t needed if a doctor knows the medical history and can attest to cause of death.

The job of a coroner is usually to determine cause of death. Heart attack. Overdose. Gunshot wound. Anoxia (lack of oxygen). Not who caused the death or why—that’s the job of law enforcement. Just how. I recently watched the autopsy of a bicyclist who was struck by a train. Even I could discern the extensive damage to his internal organs and spine. I’m guessing official cause of death was blunt force trauma.

The job of collecting evidence related to the death, such as fibers, gunshot residue, and so on, is generally up to the responsible police agency, not the coroner. However, the forensic pathologist will take blood and tissue samples for toxicology and other purposes.

Some things I learned about my local coroner, which may or may not apply to yours:

  • While awaiting autopsy and, later, while awaiting pickup by a funeral home, etc., bodies are kept in body bags on shelves. There are no drawers like in TV morgues. Most bodies are kept in refrigerated rooms (where the smell is pretty awful), but the most decomposed ones may be kept in a freezer.
  • Coroners use multiple methods and checks to ensure that bodies don’t get confused with each other and to ensure they’re examining the right one.
  • They use ankle tags, not toe tags.
  • The police department, not the coroner, takes photos of the body before the autopsy.
  • The scent of decomposing human remains is distinctive and awful.
  • The police tech person who had to take photos spread Vick’s VapoRub under her nose. But the coroner teased her about it. He says Vick’s just opens up the nasal passages and makes everything smell like mentholated death. When the smell is especially bad, he puts a tea bag inside his mask.
  • In a non-homicide case, the autopsy takes about an hour. Homicides take longer because they require more care in recording and preserving evidence. For example, the size, depth, and angle of a stab wound may prove critical in a homicide but less so in an accident.
  • Internal organs (including the brain) are removed and weighed, and samples are taken. Then the organs are placed in a bag and sewn into the body cavity.
  • Pruning shears are used to fracture the ribs, allowing the chest plate to be removed for access to the internal organs. The chest plate is returned before the body is sewn back up.
  • Before the top of the skull is sawn off and the brain removed, the coroner peels back the scalp. (It will be put back in place after the autopsy, and the cut marks won’t show at the funeral.) Part of the saw cut includes a notch so that the removed piece sits back neatly when they’re done. This eerily reminded me of making a jack-o-lantern.
  • While people’s own mistakes often cause or vastly contribute to their death, the coroners understand that it’s devastating for families. They do their best to treat the families with respect and compassion.
  • Predictably, the hardest cases emotionally for the coroners involve child victims.
  • While coroners don’t investigate the circumstances behind a death, they may alert police when a suspected accident looks more like homicide. The coroner I spoke with told me about a case in which a young child died from a head injury supposedly caused by a fall. The hospital believed the parents’ claim that it was an accident, but the forensic pathologist told police it would be almost impossible for a simple fall to cause the extensive damage he found.
  • Families are not brought in to ID bodies. In fact, while I’ve talked to agencies elsewhere that occasionally have families ID the deceased via photographs, my local agency doesn’t use family IDs at all. The coroner said there are much more reliable alternatives (medical and dental records, tattoos, serial numbers on joint replacements, etc.).
  • Breast implants have serial numbers and have been used to ID a body.
  • Evidence is not stored at the facility; bodies are released for burial, etc., and other evidence is given to families or law enforcement.
  • Unclaimed or indigent deceased people are cremated and the ashes scattered at sea.