Practice Guidelines For Florida Medical Examiners
Introduction
The Florida district medical examiner system is perhaps the most effective medical examiner system devised in the United States. One reason for its effectiveness may be that Florida medical examiners have a four-tier system of statutes, rules, guidelines, and office policies that governs their practices. Part I, Chapter 406, Florida Statutes, is the Medical Examiners Act. In it, the legislature creates the medical examiner system, charges the medical examiners with the duty to determine the cause of death under specified circumstances, empowers the medical examiners with the authority to perform autopsies at their own discretion, and broadly defines relationships with law enforcement agencies and the state attorneys. Chapter 11G, Florida Administrative Code, is a set of rules written by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission and adopted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement after public hearings. The code expands on the statutes. To some extent the code has the force of statute because infractions can result in discipline. Like statute, code is written in absolutes...