Also, you could smother them with a pillow made of ice.
Or, you could inject them with poison using a syringe made of ice.
Or, best yet, you can take them ice fishing and kick them in the ice hole.
It seems to me that staging an accidental looking hit-and-run would be really difficult. Most pedestrians get hit by a car because they’re stepping out into the street or walking too close to the side of the road; cars rarely come off the road and hit somebody who’s walking on a sidewalk. The police are going to investigate the sight of the “accident” and notice how unusual it is that the unidentified car swerved off the road to hit somebody.
It’s also a difficult thing to stage just as an event. You have to be aware your victim is walking down a street at a precise point in time. Then you have to drive your car there and arrive at the right location at the right moment. And you have to do this while driving at a high enough speed to kill somebody; you can’t slow down to 5 mph to line up your approach. It’s going to be awkward if your victim does something unexpected like stop to look at a window display or is standing next to something like a telephone pole that blocks him from your car.
And people do survive getting hit by a car. It’s going to go poorly for you if you run over your victim and shatter his legs but he’s able to give the police a description of your car at the hospital.
- wondering how well human skin would take a fingerprint good enough for identification? In any case, even if that is possible the obvious answer would be to wear gloves.
- pushing with open hands (i.e. not fists) I am VERY dubious you would leave bruises.
- why would they hit the ground faster (and in any case how could you tell after the fact?); that would require a hard push DOWN rather than a push out.
But that’s why the guy in the Quincy, M.E. episode staged it as a drunk driving accident–he set the stage by swerving all around the street before veering into the guy the victim on the sidewalk.
Don’t know if this thread yet qualifies as a zombie, but I want to provide some follow-up to the side discussion that included my post above. In the week following Scalia’s death there has been a lot of chatter among my colleague forensic pathologists about the death investigation on an inside forum (Forensic pathologists love to argue, especially among each other; I wouldn’t call it an occupational hazard as much as a conditioned reflex of having to defend your opinions in court against all manner of counter arguments, from the plausible to the idiotic).
The discussants have more or less sifted out into two camps: Those that say an autopsy should have been done, and those that say that an autopsy was not needed. There is universal agreement that the scene should have been examined by a qualified and specialized forensic death scene investigator, and that the body should have at minimum been given a thorough external examination by a forensic pathologist.
The rationales of each camp are pretty much what I parsed out in my earlier post. Some say that this case is, fundamentally, a case of a 79 year old man known to have “chronic health problems” who died in his sleep. As Medical Examiners we see these every day. I’d wager the vast majority of such cases, provided nothing unusual* is noted at the scene, are handled in a way very similar to Scalia - signed out as natural deaths with no autopsy, perhaps without bringing the body to the medical examiner’s office, maybe even deferring the official signing to the decedent’s regular physician if he/she is available and willing. The difference of course is that the details of such cases are be evaluated by a physician (i.e. medical examiner) who then makes the decision to proceed this way, rather than by a nonmedically, and perhaps even nonforensically, trained person, such as a Justice of the Peace. As I said, those who would have gone this way with Scalia would have taken into account the special status of the decedent by bringing in the body and doing an external exam, whereas in the absence of that special status they may not do that.
(*Hay has been made with regard to the “pillow over his head”. First, the revised account of the ranch owner now seems to indicate that “over his head” really meant “on the bed between the top of his head and the head board.” But even if the pillow had been flat out resting on his face, that still is not an immediate cause for lights and sirens. We often see bedding and other things in “unusual” configurations in the immediate vicinity of a decedent. People can make all kinds of small or large motions as they die; or maybe they just like to sleep that way. But that’s why an experienced forensic investigator should have gone to the scene. They could have examined it, photographed it, made a qualified assessment, provided a definitive description, etc.).
The other camp says, no, this is not just any 79 year old man, but an internationally known person who has held a prominent and often controversial role in our nation’s government. And that warrants special treatment. Not because of who he was, but because of what he was. The reasons given for the special treatment are pretty much what I mentioned: Increased risk of someone wanting to bring about his demise, and the public interest in helping to quell conspiracy theories. I’d say the second consideration is given slightly more weight than the first. One comment I found very insightful likened our role in dampening down conspiracy theories and other wild speculations to other ways we are involved in protecting public heath, such as identifying infectious diseases and dangerous consumer products, noting that the psychological health of the community at large is also a type of heath we should consider protecting, to the extent we are able.
The interesting thing is that the two camps did not, as often happens, sort out among groups of older more experienced and pragmatic Vs younger more idealistic and conviction-bound, sticking to policies of equal treatment come hell or high water. Both sides had some of what I would call the Grand Poohbahs of the profession arguing for the virtues of either approach. What seems have made the difference are those that had learned lessons “the hard way” by being directly involved in (or in close proximity to) such cases Vs those who have not.
Given the conspiracy theories about Scalia’s death that are now in full swirl, I’d have to say the autopsy advocates have an excellent point.
In light of insights gained from the discussion, I therefore revise what I said before. I still don’t think what the JP did was “crazy” or negligent as some in “the media” have said, but I do think it may have been naïve, a naivety that I heretofore apparently shared to some extent. So, now I say I would definitely do an autopsy on such a case (before I said I probably would not).
One final thought about the family opposition. Without further details we really don’t know what that means. “Opposition” may mean anything between someone having said to the family “We probably won’t do an autopsy, is that OK?” to the family saying out right “You will do an autopsy over my dead body!” (so to speak). Regardless of which it is, the vast majority of the time, if you as a medical examiner think there is value in doing an autopsy, you can convince people of that by simply acknowledging their concerns, which are often based on misconceptions, and explaining what the value can be, which in the absence of an explanation can be difficult for them to appreciate in the immediate aftermath of the death of their loved one. However, if after that the opposition still remains, then you must consider the public good over the private concern. In Scalia’s case, I think the public good of providing assurance that the death of this prominent government official was completely and competently investigated, which would include a full autopsy, outweighs the opposition.
Thank you eightysix, for yet another outstanding post.
One question, if I may:
You mention ‘family opposition’ and ‘public good’. From a legal viewpoint: Do you know of any case, in any US jurisdiction, in which an M.E. was either sued or professionally disciplined after performing an autopsy against the wishes of family (or any other actor)?
I would certainly hope that the law provides absolute authority except in cases of professional misconduct.
Does it? Do licensing/professional organization have a legit complaint, absent obvious misconduct?
Statutes specifying ME/coroner authority are written at the state level, so they may vary from state to state. All the statutes I’m familiar with give the ME final authority to determine how to investigate a death, including whether or not to do an autopsy. I’m not sure if that gives them explicit immunity from being sued over it, but it would seem to offer pretty strong protection.
To answer your question, I’m not aware of a case where an ME has been sued for that. What can happen is that the NOK can petition a judge to obtain a court order to prevent an ME from doing an autopsy. That is very uncommon, but it happens from time to time. If the judge rules in favor of the opposition, the ME is not penalized, just precluded from doing an autopsy in that case.
As far as licensing/professional organizations go, it’s an interesting question. The professional organization for MEs, The NAME, has no governing authority over practice. As physicians, MEs are licensed to practice by the same state licensing agencies that license all other physicians, and as such are subject to whatever quality assurance board or entity is operative in that state. Most of the complaints those entities act on revolve around misconduct, but they do also, at least in my state, get involved when physicians’ decisions/actions are deemed to have been so far out of practice norms that, in order to protect the public, corrective measures are needed. (A common measure seems to be requiring the doctor to write a paper outlining current practice guidelines for treating this or that condition.) I suppose in theory an ME could be disciplined under this rubric, but I’ve never heard of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if the people on the QA boards and what not were unaware that MEs are MDs -yes, real doctors -let alone have any inkling of what “practice norms” in forensic pathology are. Hell, MEs don’t seem to have a good handle on that. Or at least we argue about it a lot, as the stuff about Scalia’s death well illustrates.