DEATH INVESTIGATION

Death Investigation

Death Investigation

Introduction

Although California is often viewed as progressive in many areas of governance, it has created no statewide standards of performance with which to measure the adequacy of death investigation in its counties. As a result, the quality of death investigations varies widely throughout the state, many being on the poor to inadequate end of the scale. The lack of high standards, professional administration, and competent personnel does little to attract Forensic Pathologists into the state, and so there is a relative shortage of well-qualified physicians interested in performing postmortem exams (autopsies) in California. Since Forensic Pathologists are given ...