In older movies (like the one I’m watching now, Written on the Wind, 1956), when someone is killed there is a court proceeding called an “inquest.” There was also one in the movie/novel *Rebecca * (1943) when the title character’s body was found.
Are these still held? Under what circumstances? Where do they fall in relation to arraignment and trial? (Never saw one in thousands of episodes of Law & Order.)
Rebecca depicts English law, of course. The coroner’s inquest takes place in cases of sudden or unnatural death where the circumstances appear to warrant investigation. In the past, before organised law enforcement agencies, the inquest was important as the nearest thing to investigation of a sudden death that the relatives were likely to get. Nowadays it is less important and is frequently delayed until all criminal prosecutions, if any, have wound their way through the courts. The coroner may empanel a jury, or hear the inquest on his own. Presently the jury’s responsibility is limited to determining :-
who died
when
where
how
and verdicts of ‘wilful murder against [named individual]’ are no longer possible - the nearest thing would be ‘unlawful killing’.
One recently happened in south Carolina. The article mentions that “only a few a year” occur in that state:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765568239/SC-inquest-jury-agrees-with-suicide-ruling.html
Coroners’ inquests are still used in Illinois, though I don’t think they empanel juries anymore.
So instead of inquests, the coroner just makes a decision on his/her own?
What is the relationship between the office of the coroner and the office of the medical examiner? Are they the same thing in some places?
They are two different models. The coroner’s inquest is a quasi-judicial inquiry; there is no requirement that the coroner have any medical qualifications. Medical professionals can be called as witnesses before the coroner and jury (in those jurisdictions which have retained the jury.)
A medical examiner system is more of a medical review, as the name implies. The medical examiner is a doctor and approaches it more from the medical perspective.
Where I live, Saskatchewan, there are still coroner’s inquests. There are full-time coroners, but there can also be ad hoc coroners appointed. They sit with a jury of six. It is a civil proceeding, not related to criminal matters. The purpose of the inquiry is to determine how the person died, not to consider criminal liability. The inquest cannot return an indictment against an individual, which the original coroner’s juries could in England. (If you read old Christie or Sayers novels, you may run into that issue.)
They do in Adams County, Illinois at least.
The coroner decides whether to hold a P-M, and, based on its results, whether to hold an inquest, and if so , whether he should empanel a jury (increasingly rare these days). Without one he reaches his own verdict, or he may record a ‘narrative verdict’ if the death does not fit easily into a category. He may instruct the jury as what verdicts he will accept from them, if they ask.
If the inquest is unable to determine how the deceased died (or the jury refuses to render any of the verdicts which the coroner says he will accept) it will record an ‘open verdict’. The open verdict may also be used in cases of doubt, e.g. the alcoholic daughter of my mother’s employer was found dead in her squalid apartment, surrounded by empty bottles and a bottle of pills. Because there was no positive evidence that the deceased intended to take her own life, rather than taking a pill in a befuddled state, an open verdict was recorded.
Well, watching the news, in Britain we tend to have inquests whenever someone dies in strange circumstances.
According to wikipedia, they also take place when someone finds buried treasure.