Request By:
Mr. Harlan E. Judd, Jr.
Cumberland County Attorney
Courthouse
Burkesville, Kentucky 42717
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Your question relates to the expense of transporting a corpse to the hospital for an autopsy. The facts you gave and the question read:
"On December 24th, 1980 an atrocious murder apparently took place in Cumberland County, Kentucky. A body of a young man from Tennessee was discovered in a barn which had been set on fire. The young man's body was sent to Elizabethtown for an autopsy. A suspect had been arrested and several blood stains were found in the accused's car. A local funeral home has submitted a bill to the Cumberland County Fiscal Court for transportation expense for taking the body to Elizabethtown for an autopsy. In addition, a local wrecker service has submitted a statement for towing the accused's car to Frankfort to the Kentucky State Police Laboratory.
"The Cumberland County Fiscal Court has requested that I write to you concerning the following question:
"Is it the responsibility of the Cumberland County Fiscal Court to pay the expense of transporting the corpse to the hospital where an autopsy will be peformed and the expense of towing the car to the Kentucky State Police Laboratory in Frankfort, Kentucky?"
By telephone you stated that the county coroner was called to the scene where the young man's body was found in the burning barn. He and a representative of the State Police decided that the body should be taken to Elizabethtown, where an autopsy was conducted on the body by a state pathologist. It was also decided that the accused's car, containing blood stains, be taken to Frankfort to the Kentucky State Police Laboratory for checking.
Under KRS 72.410 the coroner must investigate the cause and manner of any death defined by KRS 72.405 as a "coroner's case", i.e., a case in which the coroner has reasonable cause for believing that the death of a human being within his county was caused by homicide, crime, violence, accident, suicide, poison, drowning, illegal abortion, or unusual circumstances. In addition, under KRS 72.410, the coroner may, in his sound discretion, when investigating a coroner's case, inter alia, order an autopsy and hold an inquest.
We assume the Cumberland County coroner investigated the case as a coroner's case and that, while doing so, he ordered an autopsy and directed the accused's vehicle be taken to the Frankfort lab.
KRS 72.415 provides:
"For the purpose of enforcing the provisions of KRS 72.410 to 72.470, coroners and deputy coroners shall have the full power and authority of peace officers in this state, including the power of arrest and the authority to bear arms, and shall have the power and authority to administer oaths, to enter upon public or private premises for the purpose of making investigations, to seize evidence, to interrogate persons, to require the production of medical records, books, papers documents, or other evidence, and to impound vehicles involved in vehicular deaths, employ special investigators and photographers, and to expend funds for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of KRS 72.410 to 72.470. The fiscal court or urban-county government shall pay all reasonable expenses incurred by the coroner in carrying out his responsibilities under the provisions of KRS 72.410 to 72.470."
Under KRS 72.415, and where the coroner carries out his duties under KRS Chapter 72, the fiscal court of that county must pay all reasonable expenses incurred by the coroner in so carrying out his responsibilities. In addition, KRS 72.435 provides that where it is necessary for the coroner to order a body to be transported or exhumed, payment therefor shall be made by the fiscal court, upon certification by the coroner that the services were rendered.
Under the above assumptions and authorities stated, it is our opinion that the fiscal court must pay the expense of transporting the corpse to Elizabethtown for the autopsy and the expense of towing the accused's car to the Frankfort State Police lab.
We can find no statute placing this burden on the state. See § 230, Kentucky Constitution; KRS 41.110; and