Subjects:

Practice & Procedure

Contents:

Chapter 1 History of Coronial Institutions

Chapter 2 The Modern Office of Coroner

Chapter 3 Death and Other Reportable Incidents

Chapter 4 Coronial Organisation

Chapter 5 Death Scene Investigation

Chapter 6 Special Scenes

Chapter 7 The Coroner as Investigator

Chapter 8 The Forensic Pathologist

Chapter 9 The Autopsy

Chapter 10 Human Identification

Chapter 11 Ancillary Medical Investigations

Chapter 12 The Interpretations of Injuries and Medical Findings

Chapter 13 The Medical Report

Chapter 14 The Inquest

Chapter 15 Inquest Findings

Chapter 16 The Conduct of Inquests

Chapter 17 Appeals Against Inquest Findings

Chapter 18 Coroners and Prevention of Death and other Phenomena

Appendices (Materials)

Index

Crime and the investigation of suspicious deaths is a popular topic with crime novels, films, and television drama regularly focusing on the ‘who done it’ aspect of death.

In contrast, real world death investigation takes place continuously at many levels in the community and for a range of purposes. Whilst in the past criminal issues were uppermost in the minds of the investigating coroner, today the focus of the coroner’s jurisdiction has changed. Death and injury prevention have become increasingly important, with many coroners making recommendations that have a direct implication for public health and safety. These changes in focus have lead to a restructuring of the process of death investigation.

The Coroner now has to manage a team of specialist scientific and medical investigators from a wide variety of disciplines. In addition, the human side of coronial investigation has developed enormously with coroners becoming involved in providing bereavement support for families and friends of the deceased. These changes have brought new challenges for coroner investigators and the community.

Coroners: Law, Medicine and Practice bridges the divide between traditional legal texts dealing with the office and jurisdiction of the coroner and those forensic medical and scientific texts dealing with the technical aspects of death investigation. It provides a comprehensive overview of the legal, technical, scientific, and medical features surrounding the investigations carried out by coroners.

• Australian Law
• Provides a comprehensive overview of the legal, technical, scientific and medical features surrounding the investigations carried out by coroners
• Outlines the history of the coronial system of death investigation and illustrates this history with a number of case studies
• Special death scenes such as deaths in custody, transport related deaths, and mass disasters, including disaster victim identification, are covered
• Both the medical investigation and the legal investigation of a death are examined in detail
• Appendices at the end of the book include useful resource materials