SB 297

This bill 1) prohibits individuals, including medical examiners but not

including coroners, from performing or assisting with a death investigation without

a state-issued license; 2) establishes a Medicolegal Investigation Examining Board

to administer the licensure provisions and provide training and education to

licensees; 3) makes certain changes relating to the duties of coroners and medical

examiners regarding death notifications; 4) creates provisions regarding the

handling of personal property by a coroner or medical examiner at a death scene; 5)

modifies provisions regarding the disposition and disinterment of bodies; and 6)

provides coroners and medical examiners access to mental health treatment records

without informed consent for certain purposes.

Current law overview

Under current law, coroners or medical examiners investigate certain deaths

and have various duties and powers specified by law related to deaths occurring in

this state, including receiving reports of deaths, participating in inquest

proceedings, determining causes of death, ordering autopsies, administering

provisions related to making anatomical gifts, and issuing cremation permits.

Current law provides for the election of coroners for four-year terms by the electors

of each county or of more than one county in certain cases, except that a county with

a population of 500,000 or more must, and a county with a population of less than

500,000 may, abolish the office of coroner and establish a medical examiner system.

Under the medical examiner system, a medical examiner is appointed by the county

board or, in populous counties, by the county executive. Current law does not

otherwise specify any particular requirements that an individual must fulfill in

order to hold the office of coroner or to be appointed as a medical examiner.

The bill

Licensure of medical examiners, medicolegal investigators, and others

The bill establishes a prohibition against performing a death investigation or

performing the functions of a medical examiner or a person who assists a coroner or

medical examiner with a death investigation (medicolegal investigation staff

member) without a license in medicolegal investigation issued by the Medicolegal

Investigation Examining Board, except that the bill exempts coroners and certain

accredited medical examiners from this requirement. Any person who violates the

prohibition may be subject to a fine of not more than $1,000 and imprisonment of up

to 90 days.

The bill requires the board to issue an initial license in medicolegal

investigation, at no charge, to every individual who is serving as a nonaccredited

medical examiner or medicolegal investigation staff member in this state on the bill's

effective date. The bill also allows an individual who is serving as coroner on the bill's

effective date to elect to receive such a license. The bill requires each such individual

to complete, prior to the next license renewal date, 40 hours of education, except that