Request By:
Mr. Jerry E. Thompson
Major, MSC
Chief, Patient Administration Division
Department of the Army
Fort Campbell, Kentucky 42223
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You request our opinion as to whether your command is authorized to order an autopsy to be performed on a civilian or retired military member without the consent of the spouse or next of kin when the cause of death cannot be established.
I believe your question will have to be converted to this statement: Under what circumstances may the county coroner exercise his jurisdiction [including ordering an autopsy] over civilians who were living within the federal enclave and whose causes of death cannot be established?
The county coroner [of the county in which the deceased died] may exercise his jurisdiction and hold an inquest if he has reason to believe that the death of a human being within his county was caused by crime, suicide, drowning or other unnatural or sudden cause, or if death occurs without the attendance of a physician at least 36 hours prior to death. See KRS 72.020 and 72.030. In City of Ashland v. Miller, Ky., 283 S.W.2d 195 (1955), the court wrote that the coroner should be called in only where the circumstances indicate that the death might be from other than natural causes. The historical "function of the coroner always has been to aid in the administration of criminal justice by inquiring into the circumstances of violent or suspicious deaths, and the object of an inquest has been to obtain information as to whether death was caused by some criminal act." City of Ashland v. Miller, above.
The coroner's authority to order an autopsy, under KRS 72.070, is restricted to cases in which he has exercised his jurisdiction in conducting an inquest, except in cases arising under KRS 72.080 where deceased has been buried. See Streipe v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 243 Ky. 15, 47 S.W.2d 1004 (1932) 1005.
Now the question is whether the county coroner can exercise his jurisdiction as to holding an inquest and ordering an autopsy over a deceased who was a civilian living in the coroner's county but within a federal enclave, Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Of course the federal enclave has exclusive jurisdiction over such federal territory pursuant to Article I, § 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution of the United States, except to the extent of any retrocession of that jurisdiction. See our general consent statute, KRS 3.010, and our consent to retrocession, KRS 3.110. In the absence of reservations in the consenting act, federal jurisdiction over land acquired by the United States by consent of the state is exclusive of state authority. KRS 3.010 contains no explicit and binding reservations in this regard. See Commonwealth v. King, 252 Ky. 699, 68 S.W.2d 45 (1934) 47; and Hardin County Bd. of Supervisors v. Kentucky Limousines, Ky., 293 S.W.2d 239 (1956) 241. In Commonwealth v. King, above, it was held that the blanket consent to acquisition operated as a complete cession of jurisdiction. See Kingwood Oil Co. v. Henderson County Bd. of Sup'rs, Ky., 367 S.W.2d 129 (1963) 131, in the latter regard.
Our answer to your question is that, for the above reasons, the county coroner has no jurisdiction over civilian deceased who lived and died on the federal enclave, though within his county, and even though KRS 72.020 and 72.030 are met. Thus the coroner cannot engage in an inquest nor order an autopsy on the bodies of such people regardless of consent of next of kin. Further, the coroner has no authority to give concurrence or to agree with federal authorities as to an autopsy on such bodies.