Coronership: America’s strangest elected office

Almost no one questions the reasoning be­hind electing the President of the United States, barring the occasional person who thinks that America should be ruled by King Barack I. The president needs to be a repre­sentative of the people, and to ensure that the President’s first and foremost duty is to represent, we hold elections. Despite what you might have to say about who the President really represents, this reasoning is the bedrock of our government. This logic applies to all elected officials, from con­gressman all the way down to village trustees and school board members. However, in over 1,000 counties, there is one local elected official who doesn’t seem as though they should neces­sarily be included within this democratic princi­ple. That individual would be the county coroner. Yes, in many parts of the country, the person in charge of all the cadavers is elected.

The position of coroner goes all the way back to England in the 12th century. The monarchy had been having some issues with the sheriffs be­coming too powerful, so Richard I created an office that would oversee the investigation of criminal cases and deliver preliminary investiga­tions to the royal courts. Because these officials served the king directly, they were called “coro­ners,” from the Latin coronam, meaning “crown.” By the 16th century, the office of coroner had evolved into the more familiar position of some­one who is elected to investigate deaths. Since the American colonies were at the time under the control of the British, famed for their im­position of British systems onto wherever they “owned,” the American colonies also developed this coroner system.

In the subsequent 400 years, our knowledge of the human body and the technology we use to investigate cause of death have evolved. In the United States, 21 states and Washington DC have a death investigation system to reflect that change, based entirely on medical examiners. These are death investigators who almost al­ways have some degree in pathology or forensic pathology and are allowed to perform autopsies, and are always appointed by a government of­ficial. In other parts of the country, the person who looks into the cause of death is quite differ­ent. Twenty-nine states still use a system based on coroners, although 18 of those states have a few counties with medical examiners. Coroners, unlike medical examiners, have widely varying requirements, and whether they are elected or not varies county to county. Only 16 states specify training requirements for being a coro­ner, and only four of those states require that the coroner actually be a physician.

Even the requirements that some states do have can be lackluster. Alabama, for example, only re­quires the coroner to complete training within the first 180 days after assuming office and each subsequent year thereafter. This may sound at least mildly effective, but any notion of effec­tiveness disappears when you consider that the training is for a paltry 12 hours. For the states without training requirements, reading the laws governing the coroner can make you squirm. Missouri, a state with a mix of elected coroners and appointed medical examiners, for example, allows the county coroner to perform autopsies with no required training. The state requires that the coroner use their own judgment on wheth­er to get a physician to do the autopsy instead, even though the coroner may not have received any training on when to get a physician.

The truly odd thing about the position of county coroner is that it is, in many cases, an elected one. The reason for their election is that accord­ing to state and local laws, the coroner is not a medical professional as much as a part of law enforcement. This association seems surprising to many because the historical idea of a coro­ner is not what we typically see in pop culture. The coroners that appear on TV crime dramas seem closer to experienced medical profession­als than deputy sheriffs. After reading through state laws, the original law enforcement roots of the coroner’s office can still be seen, since coro­ners often have the power to arrest the sheriff or take over if the sheriff is incapacitated. Since we elect sheriffs, it makes sense to elect a coroner as a substitute sheriff. This close relationship between law enforcement and coroners, elect­ed or appointed, can be problematic, as it was in New Orleans. There, Dr. Paul McGarry allegedly covered up several deaths by reporting a natural or self-inflicted cause, when the person had re­ally been killed while in police custody.

Despite the dearth of real knowledge that is needed to be a county coroner, it could still be argued that it is reasonable for coroners to be elected. After all, there are no job requirements for the president of the United States besides being of a certain age and having been a natural born citizen. The president (so far) has always been qualified to hold the job. But it’s safe to say that county coroner elections probably do not have the rigorous public vetting processes that national elections do. Local elections are usually more about getting to know people rather than about qualifications and policy positions. This is especially the case for coroners, where there could not be such a vast difference of opinion on how to test for drug overdose. In an interview with NPR, June Wood—the incumbent who ran for one of four county coroner positions in 2013 in St. Lawrence County, New York—said it best: “Basically, to be a coroner, you just have to be publicly popular. I guess it’s more of a popularity contest. Then you learn the job as you go.” The last thing one wants to hear from someone who cuts open cadavers is that “you learn the job as you go.”

The other problem with electing county coro­ners is the exposure to politics. Since coroners have to be elected, there is a disincentive to make any decisions that might cause a stir, even if it is factually correct. In Lake County, Illinois, coroner Thomas Rudd made several controver­sial decisions. One involved changing the cause of death from homicide to undetermined for the death of a child in a daycare facility after notic­ing evidence that had not been brought up pre­viously. Rudd also drew up a storm when he de­clared that the death of a beloved police officer in Fox Lake could have been a suicide despite there being evidence of homicide. Weeks later, the investigation led to the discovery that the dead police officer had been less than ethical and that he had in fact committed suicide, but had staged the scene to look like a murder. Due to his negative portrayal and “Lake County poli­tics,” Rudd decided not to run again. He left be­hind two candidates for the upcoming election of Lake County coroner, one of whom has since been fired from his position as deputy coroner after he was drunk and shouting while selling beer outside a movie theater.

In addition to the politicization of death in­vestigation, the election of coroners becomes quite a bit stranger: not only do we elect coro­ners, we elect Democratic and Republican cor­oners. June Wood was a Republican candidate for coroner, and Thomas Rudd was elected as a Democratic coroner. There is no good rea­son for this, other than local parties trying to have a foothold. In fact, it can cause some se­rious problems. Recently, Thomas Rudd decid­ed to run again for Lake County coroner, but be­cause he missed the Democratic primary, he tried to file as an independent. But the remain­ing Democratic candidate for coroner, Michael Donnenwirth—the person who was fired from deputy coroner—challenged Rudd’s candida­cy based on an Illinois law that prevents candi­dates from changing parties within an election cycle. The Illinois Supreme Court sided with Donnenwirth, so Rudd can only be a write-in candidate in November. If there were no party politics in county coroner elections, Rudd simply would have filed his candidacy slightly later than usual. Instead, there was a lawsuit that removed the qualified candidate from the ballot.

Due to party politics of people voting down the ballot for one party, Donnenwirth or his Republican opponent, Dr. Howard Cooper, could be elected for simply having a little D or R next to their name, not for their knowledge or ex­perience. While this is an issue for politicians of all levels, voters can rely on and want party affiliations to represent different ideas and ap­proaches for most politicians, but ideological differences are the last thing we want for the person who declares cause of death. The fact that coroner elections happen within the party system is mindboggling and only creates polit­ical nonsense.

The human body is no longer the mystery it once was. We can measure the human body with specific data and scientific standards, and we expect anyone who investigates a human body to adhere to those standards. The people who examine living bodies are doctors and sci­entists, yet often those who look at dead bod­ies are elected politicians. There is a reason that the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and many other national scientific organizations are independent: sci­ence does not mix well with politics. I would never want to elect my personal physician, so why elect a coroner?