Bills · 2017-2018 Regular Session
Relating to: requiring a coroner or medical examiner to submit to the state crime laboratories DNA samples from certain deceased persons. (FE)
Coroner Crime and criminals — Homicide or murder Death Genetics and genetic testing
- Introduced, stopped here
- Passes Assembly, not reached
- Passes Senate, not reached
- Governor signs, not reached
- Law, not reached
Unfamiliar terms? Glossary
What this bill does
Plain-language analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau
Current law requires notification of the sheriff, police chief, or medical
examiner or coroner of certain deaths, such as deaths in which there are
unexplained, unusual, or suspicious circumstances; homicides or suicides; deaths
that follow an accident or that are due to poisoning; or deaths for which there was
no physician in attendance within 30 days preceding the death. In such deaths, the
coroner or medical examiner must take any specimens or other material to help
determine the cause of death upon request of a family member of the deceased
person.
Under this bill, following such a death, the coroner or medical examiner must,
unless a family member objects, submit a biological specimen to the state crime
laboratories in the Department of Justice for analysis and inclusion in its data bank.