In roughly half of U.S. counties, including mine, the coroner is chosen in a partisan (Democrat vs. Republican) election.
I’m thinking that everyone here would answer no to the thread title question, but maybe I’m wrong.
Some might doubt that the cause of death is commonly politicized, because coroner election campaigns are almost always low key, without a battle over issues. So it might almost seem be a conspiracy theory to suggest partisan bias in cause of death determinations. I have a few links challenging that, but I am first going to give one link confusing me because I cannot find the whole article, or even an overall abstract:
I’m of the view that the coroner must always accurately describe the cause of death and not claim a murder was a heart attack, etc. However, there are times when coroners may need to emphasize the cause of death if the public needs to take something more seriously. So, for instance, in Covid, maybe hammering the point that “yes, indeed, more and more people’s autopsies show their lungs were wrecked by Covid,” etc.
I’m just not convinced that having “non-partisan” elections actually means anything. You just aren’t officially part of a party.
And making it an appointment instead of an election makes me think that whichever party is in charge will just pick one of their own.
Basically, it’s not that I think political partisanship is good in this field. It’s that I’m not sure you can remove it once people treat it like something that even can be partisan.
I think you’re framing the discussion the wrong way. A lot of people from outside the United States are astounded by how many elected officials we have. We elect judges, prosecutors, public defenders (in some jurisdictions), school boards, county commissioners, sheriffs, coronors and many others whereas in a lot of other places these officials would be appointed. We elect coronors and other officials because our distruct of bureaucracy. I’m pretty sure the roots of this is Jacksonian democracy when the spoils system was ended. It wasn’t about politicizing death it was to prevent politicans from appointing their pals.
Yeah… but electing a corner?
A highly complex job you want to leave to the same people that elected Trump to appointed?
Surely you can find a better way of doing it?
Something that can both satisfy your ( American you) distrust of beauracracy with a list of appropriate qualifiacationsand a suitably robust appointment process?
I would encourage you to google how a corner is appointed in NZ… couldnt you arrange a similar process that meets US cultural needs?
Leaving it to elections is how your end up with people like that measles booster Trump appointed.
I think the OP is mistaking the job of “coroner” for that of “medical examiner”. They’re sometimes the same, but not always, and the jurisdictions where they’re elected are jurisdictions where they’re not the same.
Arguments against appointing coroners (instead of electing them) boil down to “you’re taking away the power of the people!” and also the claim, possibly justified in some circumstances, that county commissioners will appoint politically-connected buddies to the job.
Having a coroner on the ballot identified with a political party in a county where that party is dominant virtually guarantees the election of that person.
A recent bill to end county coroner elections in Ohio failed after coroners rose up in protest. There are two counties in Ohio where the elected coroner must be a forensic pathologist (one is Cuyahoga, covering Cleveland).
There are nowhere near enough trained forensic pathologists to fill coroner roles in smaller counties. Even a requirement that coroners be general pathologists, who have autopsy training and typically do at least a month or two of forensic path during their residencies, would be tough to accomplish.
I think that at a minimum, medical examiners who are board-certified forensic pathologists should be in charge of death investigations in large population centers. In small jurisdictions, regional oversight by board-certified forensic pathologists (not internists or funeral directors) might be a way to minimize bad results due to incompetence and/or political concerns.
As to politicizing causes of death: in the case of the Pennsylvania measles brouhaha, local Republican officials including a Lancaster County commissioner have jumped into the fray attacking the (Democratic) governor. At least one PA state representative (Russ Diamond), who identifies as a conservative Republican, also suggests the state’s public health alert is politically motivated. The Lancaster County coroner is a Republican physician (but not a forensic pathologist) who seems to be saying that the autopsy report listing measles as a contributing cause of the death of an infant doesn’t really mean that measles was a cause.
It’s a mess, involving poor initial communication and then disintegrating into a political slanging match. The former could happen under any system. The latter should not be allowed to contaminate death investigations.
The same people who elected Trump also elected senators, representatives, mayors, sheriffs, municipal representatives, judges, county officials, and a myriad of other officials. I’m not all that concerned about a coronor in the grand scheme of things.
I think you misunderstand what a coroner does in the United States. A coronor is typically focused on the legal or administrative parts of an investigation and leaves the medical part to a medical examiner. Also, your argument appears to be a condemnation of democracy in general. And as far as uur Secretary of Health and Human Services is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., we didn’t leave it up to election. The president appointed him to the position and the Senate, in their infinite wisdom, confirmed the appointment.
You really sound like you’re making an argument damning democracy in general.
It is USAians who enable and allow Trump, and to hear that you elect a role like coroner (which I do understand is separate from ME, here for example they are expected to have legal, not medical training) is just another example of how screwed up the system actually is
Concern about the office being elected are not necessarily obviated by appointment. Think all the career professionals that have been dismissed and replaced by new Trump and Trump flunkee appointments, on the health side from RFK down.
The alternative may not be any closer to a meritocracy and may be even more subject to political whim, and to executive pressure on desired results, covering up whatever an executive wants buried.
We’ve been electing coroners here in the Americas since long before we separated from Great Britain. Like I said earlier, many people from outside the United States are astonished by how many elected officials we have, but you’re trying to connect that to the election of Trump to show how screwed up the system is. The fact that we elect coroners is not indicative of a malfunctioning system.
And yes, sometimes we do need to politicize the cause of death, like when the current administrations policies cause deaths due to having a moron in charge of secretary of health and human services.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) on Tuesday stood in front of television cameras and blamed misinformation for declining vaccination rates — specifically calling out the Trump administration and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
His comments touched off a public feud between Shapiro and Kennedy and a flurry of accusations over the scope of the state’s measles outbreak.
Or when Americans died as they either did not get covid vaccinations or they tried Ivermectin or worse.
There are only 850 board certified forensic pathologists in the U.S., and I find plausible web opinion saying we have a shortage of forensic pathologists. Giving them a big new responsibility now the job of several thousand coroners is impractical.
As for giving the coroners determination of death training beyond the medical or nursing degree most of them now have, the Lancaster County elected Republican coroner who questioned measles as a cause of death, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, does have, according to his web page, a certification from the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators. This is not like board certification in a medical specialty, but from what I gather he did have to pass a multiple choice exam with 240 questions.
If a political appointee, yes.
But if hiring and retention has civil service protections, or if the responsibility is given to a local non-profit hospital, probably not.