Why are medical examiners important?

Answer 1

Medical examiners are physicians who examine the deceased body for signs of illness, disease, trauma, etc. They look at every organ and at the blood to determine cause of death. An M.E.'s forensic report assigns whether a death was from natural causes or unnatural causes such as accident or homicide. As such, the M.E.'s job is an important first link in the judicial process, helping the non-medical prosecutor to know whether to bring charges of murder or manslaughter. For example, in cases of poisoning over a long period of time, the M.E.'s report not only helps the prosecutor determine homicide (murder) but to decide to make the charge of premeditated murder.

In community health aspects, an M.E.'s findings may help pinpoint an area/location that is most affected by a communicable disease, and their work helps establish "death rates" statistics for many causes (diseases, accidents, murders, old age/natural causes) and death rates per the type of disease (example: heart disease due to arteriosclerosis). M.E.s can decide whether there were contributory causes of death as well, which can shed new light on the circumstances and reason the person died.