What to know
A medicolegal investigation is conducted by a coroner’s or medical examiner’s office to determine how someone died. Each state sets its own standards for what kinds of deaths require investigation. These are the laws for Maine.
Medicolegal Death Investigation System
Is medical death investigation system centralized, county-based, or district-based?
Centralized. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3023.
If centralized, in which department or agency is the system housed?
Department of the Attorney General. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3022.
Does the state system have a coroner, medical examiner, or coroners and medical examiners?
Medical examiner. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3023.
"In practice" notes?
None.
Is there a state medical examiner?
Yes. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3022.
If so, what is the state medical examiner's role?
The Chief Medical Examiner is authorized and empowered to carry into effect this chapter and, in pursuance thereof, to make and enforce such reasonable rules consistent with this chapter as the Chief Medical Examiner determines necessary. Rules adopted pursuant to this section are routine technical rules as defined in Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter II-A. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3032.
In what department or agency is the state medical examiner's office located?
Department of the Attorney General. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3022.
Are there deputies?
The Chief Medical Examiner may select one or more of the medical examiners to serve as deputy chief medical examiners. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3022.
If so, what are the deputies' roles?
Carry out the proper functioning of the Chief Medical Examiner's office. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3022.
What are the qualifications for deputies?
The medical examiners must be learned in the science of medicine and anatomy, licensed as physicians in this State and bona fide residents of this State. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3023.
Qualifications, Term of Office, and Training
Is the coroner or medical examiner position elected?
No. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3022.
If so, how many years is the term of office?
Not applicable.
What are the qualifications specified by law?
The Chief Medical Examiner must possess a degree of doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathy, be licensed to practice in the State and be expert in the specialty of forensic pathology. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3022.
Investigations/Autopsies
What types of deaths are required to be investigated?
A medical examiner case may exist and must be reported as provided in section 3026 when remains are found that may be human and raise suspicion that death has occurred under any of the following circumstances:
A. Death is suspected of having been caused by any type of physical injury, including poisoning, regardless of whether the suspected manner of death is homicide, suicide or accident. This circumstance must be reported irrespective of whether the deceased had been attended by a physician, was a patient in a hospital, survived for a considerable time following the physical injury or died from terminal natural causes consequent to and following the physical injury;
B. Suddenly when the person is in apparent good health and has no specific natural disease sufficient to explain death;
C. During diagnostic or therapeutic procedures under circumstances indicating gross negligence or when clearly due to trauma or poisoning unrelated to the ordinary risks of those procedures;
D. Death when the person is in custody pursuant to an arrest, confined in a state correctional or detention facility, county jail, other county correctional or detention facility or local lockup or is on the way to or from a courthouse or any of these places while in the custody of a law enforcement officer or county or state corrections official;
E. Death while the person is a patient or resident of a facility of the Department of Health and Human Services or residential care facility maintained or licensed by the Department of Health and Human Services, unless clearly certifiable by an attending physician as due to specific natural causes;
F. Death suspected of being due to a threat to the public health when the authority of the medical examiner is needed to adequately study the case for the protection of the public health;
G. Death suspected of not having been certified, including, but not limited to, bodies brought into the State and any buried remains uncovered other than by legal exhumation;
H. Deaths suspected of being medical examiner cases which may have been improperly certified or inadequately examined, including, but not limited to, bodies brought into the State under those circumstances;
I. Sudden infant death syndrome deaths and all other deaths of children under the age of 18 unless clearly certifiable by an attending physician as due to specific natural causes unrelated to abuse or neglect;
J. Whenever human or possibly human remains are discovered not properly interred or disposed of, for which the responsibility to do so cannot be readily determined; or
K. Any cause when there is no attending physician capable of certifying the death as due to natural causes. When a person dies who is under the care of a religious practitioner who uses prayer and spiritual means of healing, the fact that the deceased has been under such religious care does not warrant suspicion of foul play or investigation beyond that warranted by the other facts of the case.
Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3025.
What types of deaths are required to be autopsied?
If, in any medical examiner case, in the opinion of the medical examiner, the Chief Medical Examiner, the district attorney for the district in which the death has occurred or the Attorney General, it is advisable and in the public interest that an autopsy be made, the autopsy must be conducted by the Chief Medical Examiner or by a physician that the medical examiner, with the approval of the Chief Medical Examiner, may designate. The medical examiner, with the approval of the Chief Medical Examiner, may elect to perform the autopsy . . . In the case of a child under the age of 3 years, when death occurs without medical attendance or, if attended, without a specific natural cause, the medical examiner shall order an autopsy. The autopsy may be waived by the Chief Medical Examiner, as long as the Chief Medical Examiner includes the reason for the waiver in the record. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3028.
Does the state require that pathologists perform the autopsies?
No.