Judicial aspects of death certification: an exhumation autopsy case.

Abstract

According to the related article of Turkish Public Health Law, no corpse could be buried without external examination. External examination would be performed by local municipality physician or by family physician. If there is any suspicion about the manner of death, according to the 86th article of Turkish Penal Procedure Law, this examination shall be conducted in presence of the public prosecutor by a medical doctor who has been appointed for this purpose. During the postmortem legal examinations, medical indications, time of death and all diagnosis in order to clarify the cause of death shall be determined. If the cause, manner and time of death is still not clear after postmortem examination, autopsy is mandatory. According to the 87th Article of Turkish Penal Procedure Law autopsy shall be conducted in the presence of the public prosecutor by two medical doctors, one of them being a coroner, the other an expert from the field of pathology or an expert of other branches, or a general practitioner. A 86 year old male was announced to be died suddenly at his house and postmortem examination performed in his bed. Cause of death was determined as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and Alzheimer’s disease by family physician, and then body was buried without delay. Four days after the burial, a suspicion arose about his death with a notification of an anonymous witness. Exhumation was performed 16 months after this notification. There were traumatic skeletal lesions in the autopsy and cause of death was determined as general body trauma. With this case report we discussed about procedure of announcement of death, determination of cause of death at postmortem external examination, differentiating natural deaths and suspicious deaths at postmortem external examination and reflection of these topics on investigation process; and also discussed about the procedure of postmortem external examination.