Death Investigation and the Coroner's Inquest

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.

Death Investigation and the Coroner's Inquest 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