Request By:
Mr. Gay M. Elste
Assistant Counsel
Office of Legal Counsel
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 40506
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your question reads as follows:
"A question has arisen at the Albert B. Chandler Medical Center, University of Kentucky regarding the interpretation of KRS 72.070(2). Specifically the opinion of your office is requested with regard to the following question:
"' Is the consent of the coroner in a noninquest situation necessary in order for a physician to perform an autopsy pursuant to the consent of the decedent given prior to death or pursuant to consent given by one assuming the duty of legal disposal of the body?'"
KRS 72.070(2) provides:
* * *
"(2) Upon agreement of the coroner, an autopsy or post mortem examination may be performed upon the body of a deceased person by a licensed physician or surgeon, whenever written consent thereto, duly signed and acknowledged prior to his death, has been granted by the deceased. In the absence of such consent, written or telegraphic consent for such examination shall be deemed sufficient when given by the person who assumes the duty of legal disposal of the body. If two (2) or more persons assume custody of the body, the consent of one (1) of them shall be deemed sufficient. "
Assuming that the coroner does not exercise his jurisdiction and thus holds no inquest, it is our opinion that an autopsy may be conducted upon the unburied body by a licensed physician or surgeon under KRS 72.070, provided the pre-death written consent of the dead person or the written consent of the person or persons who assume the duty of legal disposal of the body is obtained. Under KRS 72.070, as we said in OAG 77-664, copy attached, if the coroner has exercised his jurisdiction by conducting an inquest and has not completed his inquest procedure, an autopsy of an unburied body may be authorized by the coroner at his direction only, i.e., at his request. If the coroner does not want to take the initiative, an autopsy may be arranged on an unburied body with the coroner's consent [where he has not relinquished jurisdiction] and whenever the deceased has granted his consent in writing prior to his death, or where written or telegraphic consent is given by the person or persons who assume the duty of legal disposal of the body.
When KRS 72.070 is read in its entirety, it involves a situation in which the coroner has assumed jurisdiction by way of an inquest and has not completed his inquest. See KRS 72.020 and 72.030. However, the question you present is entirely different. In your situation the coroner has either completed his inquest and relinquished jurisdiction or has not conducted an inquest [no jurisdiction assumed]. In such situation it is clear that the coroner's consent to an autopsy is not required.
In our opinion KRS 72.070 must be read together with KRS 72.020, 72.030, and 72.060, since they are in pari materia [concern the same subject matter].
Economy Optical Co. v. Kentucky Bd. of Optometric Examiners, Ky., 310 S.W.2d 783 (1958). Such statutes should be read together in order that the intended harmony be property conceived or understood.
In OAG 65-709 we said that the agreement of the coroner is not necessary in a non-inquest situation. In OAG 72-171, we concluded that after the coroner relinquishes jurisdiction [and where he is not required to bury deceased under KRS 72.100] an autopsy may be procured by the attending physician if consent of the parents of deceased are obtained, but without the consent of the coroner. Thus we have been consistent on this point.
The central role of the coroner is to aid criminal justice by inquiring into the circumstances of violent or suspicious deaths, and to obtain information as to whether death was caused by some criminal act.
City of Ashland v. Miller, Ky., 283 S.W.2d 195 (1955). An autopsy can aid in the search for possible crime. However, physicians and surgeons have their own professional reasons for procuring an autopsy. They may be curious as to the cause of death or may want to advance the practice of medicine in some regard. Thus the coroner's role and the physician's role in procuring an autopsy are not necessarily related. Our construction of KRS 72.070 makes sense. Where the coroner is not acting within his jurisdiction [inquest] , there is simply no valid reason for his being involved in an autopsy procedure. As the court said in
Lewis v. Creasey Corporation, 198 Ky. 400, 248 S.W. 1046 (1923) 1048, "words will not be given their literal meaning, when to do so would evidently carry the operation of the statute far beyond the purposes which the legislature had in view . . ." Here it seems clear to us that once the coroner has relinquished jurisdiction, or if he never assumes jurisdiction, the legislature did not intend to make his consent to an autopsy necessary.
See OAG 77-664 and 77-618, copies attached, dealing in detail with the consent procedure in procuring an autopsy where the coroner is out of the picture [either does not hold an inquest or if he holds an inquest he has finished it]. The coroner's consent to autopsy is not necessary in such situation.