to an amount not exceeding one thousand dollars in any one year; and all such bills shall be paid by said county, upon a certificate by the contracting examiner that they were necessarily incurred in the performance of his duty, and upon the approval of the auditor of Boston, as provided in section nineteen, and of the mayor. Medical examiners and associate medical examiners in other counties shall receive fees as follows: For a view without an autopsy, seven dollars; for a view and an autopsy, thirty dollars; and for travel, ten cents a mile to and from the place of view.

SECTION 6. Medical examiners shall make examination upon the view of the dead bodies of only such persons as are supposed to have died by violence. If a medical examiner has notice that there is within his county the body of such a person, he shall forthwith go to the place where the body lies and take charge of the same; and if, on view thereof and personal inquiry into the cause and manner of death, he considers a further examination necessary, he shall, upon written authorization of the district attorney, mayor or selectmen of the district, city or town where the body lies, make an autopsy in the presence of two or more discreet persons, whose attendance he may compel by subpœna. Before making such autopsy he shall call the attention of the witnesses to the appearance and position of the body. He shall then and there carefully record every fact and circumstance tending to show the condition of the body and the cause and manner of death, with the names and addresses of said witnesses, which record he shall subscribe. If a medical examiner or an associate examiner considers it necessary to have a physician present as a witness at an autopsy, such physician shall receive a fee of five dollars. Other witnesses, except officers named in section fifty of chapter two hundred and sixty-two, shall be allowed two dollars each. A clerk may be employed to reduce to writing the results of a medical examination or autopsy, and shall receive two dollars a day.

The medical examiner may, if he considers it necessary, employ a chemist to aid in the examination of the body or of substances supposed to have caused or contributed to the death, and he shall receive such compensation as the examiner certifies to be just and reasonable.

SECTION 7. He shall forthwith file with the district attorney for his district a report of each autopsy and view and of his personal inquiries, with a certificate that, in his judgment, the manner and cause of death could not be ascertained by view and inquiry and that an autopsy was necessary. The district attorney, if he concurs, shall so certify to the commissioners of the county where the same was held, or in Suffolk county, to the auditor of Boston. If upon such view, personal inquiry or autopsy, the medical examiner is of opinion that the death may have been caused by the act or negligence of another, he shall at once notify the district attorney and a justice of a district court or trial justice within whose jurisdiction the body was found, if the place where found and the place of the said act or negligence are within the same county, or if the latter place is unknown; otherwise, the district attorney and such a justice

within whose district or jurisdiction the said act or negligence occurred. He shall also file with the district attorney thus notified, and with the justice or in his court, an attested copy of the record of the autopsy made as provided in the preceding section. He shall in all cases certify to the town clerk or registrar in the place where the deceased died his name and residence, if known; otherwise a description as full as may be, with the cause and manner of death.

SECTION 8. The court or trial justice shall thereupon hold an inquest, from which all persons not required by law to attend may be excluded. The district attorney, or any person designated by him, may attend the inquest and examine the witnesses, who may be kept separate, so that they cannot converse with each other until they have been examined. Within sixty days after any case of death by accident upon a railroad, electric railroad, street railway or railroad for private use an inquest shall be held, and the court or justice shall give seasonable notice of the time and place thereof to the department of public utilities. Within a like period after any case of death in which a motor vehicle is involved, an inquest shall be held, and the court or justice shall give seasonable notice of the time and place thereof to the department of public works. The attorney general or the district attorney may, notwithstanding the medical examiner's report that a death was not caused by the act or negligence of another, direct an inquest to be held, and likewise in case of death by any casualty.

SECTION 9. If it appears that the place where the supposed act or negligence occurred and the place where the body was found are both without the limits of the judicial district of the court or the jurisdiction of the trial justice notified by the medical examiner under section seven, the court or justice shall nevertheless proceed with the inquest and have continuous and exclusive jurisdiction thereof if either place is within the commonwealth and within fifty rods of the boundary line of such district or jurisdiction, unless a prior and like notice shall have been issued by a medical examiner in another county in accordance with said section.

SECTION 10. A district court about to hold an inquest may appoint an officer qualified to serve criminal process to investigate the case and to summon the witnesses, and may allow him additional compensation therefor, payable in like manner as the fees of officers in criminal cases.

SECTION 11. If a magistrate believes that an inquest to be held by him relates to the accidental death of a passenger or employee upon a railroad or electric railroad or a traveler upon a public or private way at a railroad crossing, or to an accidental death connected with the operation of a street railway or of a railroad for private use, he shall cause a verbatim report of the evidence to be made and sworn to by the person making it; and the report and the bill for services, after examination and written approval by the magistrate, shall be forwarded to the department of public utilities within thirty days after the date of the inquest, and, when made, a copy of the magistrate's report on the

inquest. The bill, when approved by said department, shall be forwarded to the state auditor and paid by the commonwealth, assessed on the person owning or operating such railroad or railway, and shall be collected in the same manner as taxes upon corporations. The magistrate may in his discretion refuse fees to witnesses in the employ of the person upon whose railroad or railway the accident occurred.

SECTION 12. The magistrate shall report in writing when, where and by what means the person met his death, his name, if known, and all material circumstances attending his death, and the name, if known, of any person whose unlawful act or negligence appears to have contributed thereto. He shall file his report in the superior court for the county where the inquest is held.

SECTION 13. If a person charged by the report with the commission of a crime is at large, the magistrate shall forthwith issue process for his arrest, returnable before any court or magistrate having jurisdiction. If he finds that murder, manslaughter or an assault has been committed, he may bind over, for appearance in said court, as in criminal cases, such witnesses as he considers necessary, or as the district attorney may designate.

SECTION 14. No embalming fluid, or any substitute therefor, shall be injected into the body of any person supposed to have met his death by violence, until a permit, signed by the medical examiner, has first been obtained.

SECTION 15. After an autopsy or a view or examination without an autopsy, the medical examiner shall deliver the body, upon application, to the husband or wife, to the next of kin, or to any friend of the deceased, who shall have priority in the order named. If the body is unidentified or unclaimed for fortyeight hours after the view thereof, the medical examiner shall deliver it to the overseers of the poor of the town where found, who shall bury it in accordance with section seventeen of chapter one hundred and seventeen.

SECTION 16. Medical examiners and associate examiners within their respective districts shall, on application and payment or tender of seven dollars, view the body and make personal inquiry concerning the death of any person whose body is intended for cremation, and shall authorize such cremation only when of opinion that no further examination or judicial inquiry concerning such death is necessary.

SECTION 17. The medical examiner may allow reasonable compensation, payable by the county in the manner provided in section nineteen, for services rendered in bringing to land a human body found in any of the harbors, rivers or waters of the commonwealth, but this provision shall not entitle any person to compensation for services rendered in searching for a dead body.

SECTION 18. The medical examiner shall take charge of any money or other personal property of the deceased found on or near the body, and deliver it to the person entitled to its custody or possession, or, if not claimed within

sixty days, to a public administrator. For fraudulent neglect or refusal so to deliver such property within three days after demand, a medical examiner or an associate medical examiner shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than two years.

SECTION 19. Every medical examiner shall return an account of the expenses of each view or autopsy, including his fees, to the commissioners of the county where held, or in Suffolk county to the auditor of Boston, and shall annex to his return the written authorization of the autopsy. The commissioners or auditor shall audit the same, and certify to the county treasurer what items therein are just and reasonable, and he shall pay the same to the person entitled thereto. No auditing officer shall certify any fee for an autopsy until he has received from the district attorney the certificate required by section

seven.

SECTION 20. Every medical examiner and associate examiner shall annually, on or before March first, transmit to the state secretary certified copies of the records of all deaths by him investigated during the preceding year, and within sixty days after the expiration of his term shall make like returns for so much of the year as he held office. For a refusal or neglect so to do, he shall forfeit not less than ten nor more than fifty dollars.

SECTION 21. Each medical examiner and associate examiner, including those in Suffolk county, shall receive from the commonwealth twenty cents for each of the first twenty deaths recorded and returned by him in any year, as provided in the preceding section, and ten cents for each additional death so recorded and returned, as certified by the state secretary.

SECTION 22. The state secretary shall, at the expense of the commonwealth, prepare and furnish to the medical examiners blank record books and blank forms for returns, and shall cause the returns for each year to be bound together in one volume with indexes; and shall prepare therefrom such tables as will render them of utility, and shall make annual report thereof to the general court in connection with the report required by section twenty-one of chapter forty-six.

APPENDIX VIII

TEXT OF THE NEW YORK MEDICAL EXAMINER LAW

A

LAWS OF NEW YORK, 1915

Chap. 284

N ACT to amend the Greater New York Charter, and repeal certain sections thereof and of chapter four hundred and ten of the Laws of eighteen hundred and eighty-two, in relation to the abolition of the office of Coroner and the establishment of the office of the chief medical examiner. Became a law April 14, 1915, with the approval of the Governor. Passes, three-fifths being present.

Accepted by the City

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

Section 1. The office of coroner in the City of New York shall be abolished on January first, nineteen hundred and eighteen, and after this section takes effect, a vacancy occurring in such an office in any borough shall not be filled unless by reason of the occurrence thereof, there shall be no coroner in office in such borough, in which case the vacancy in such borough last occurring shall be filled for a term to expire on January first, nineteen hundred and eighteen. If, by reason of the provisions of this section, the number of coroners in a borough be reduced, the remaining coroner or coroners in such borough shall have the powers and perform the duties conferred or imposed by law on the board of coroners in such borough.

2. Title four of chapter twenty-three, sections fifteen hundred and seventy and fifteen hundred and seventy-one of the Greater New York charter, as reenacted by chapter four hundred and sixty-six of the laws of nineteen hundred and one is hereby repealed, and in its place is inserted a new title to be numbered four and to read as follows:

Section 1570.

TITLE IV

Chief Medical Examiner

Organization of office; officers and employees.

1571. Violent and suspicious deaths; procedure.

1571a. Autopsies; findings.

1571b. Report of deaths; removal of body.

1571c. Records.

1571d. Oaths and affidavits.