Electing coroners happens every four years in hundreds of U.S. counties, including Pennsylvania. Few voters in those counties even realize they are electing coroners. If you’re one of those voters, it’s even less likely that you’ll pay any attention to the qualifications of coroner candidates. That’s a big mistake. Qualifications to run for coroner are…
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A Coroner’s Posts on COVID-19 in April 2020
In 2020, I used social media for my Coroner’s posts on COVID-19. These are some of the Facebook posts I wrote documenting the first surge of the pandemic in early 2020. The posts are unedited and shown with original images. The quality of writing and graphics could be better, but that wasn’t the priority at…
Private Autopsies in 2025
More families may be seeking private autopsies in 2025. Coroners and medical examiners, at least in Pennsylvania, only do autopsies on cases that fall within their legal purview. Hospitals may not grant family requests for a medical autopsy when someone dies of apparent natural causes (see below). Sometimes a family is concerned about neglect or…