Youngstown Daily Legal News

Bill tweaks rules for coroners

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 13, 2015

State Reps. Stephen Huffman, R-Tipp City, and Terry Johnson, R-McDermott, have filed a bill into the Ohio General Assembly that would revise the state’s coroner system.

The proposed legislation, House Bill 240, would define the legal residence of a dead person for purposes of the body’s disposal, recognize that coroners include medical examiners, amend the qualifications for holding office as a coroner of a charter county and specify who pays for the autopsy of an inmate of a state correctional facility.

The measure also would require, under certain conditions, and authorize, under other conditions, supplemental compensation for coroners who are forensic pathologists, revise how the office of coroner is filled when a vacancy cannot be filled by election or appointment and specify the disposition of a firearm when a person meets death under certain circumstances.

“As two former county coroners, Rep. Johnson and I both know Ohio has a superior coroner system; HB 240 will further improve upon it,” Huffman told members of the House State Government Committee last week.

When, under continuing law, the body of a dead person is found in a township or municipal corporation, the person was not an inmate of a correctional, benevolent or charitable institution of Ohio and the body is not claimed by any person for private interment or cremation at the person’s own expense or delivered for the purpose of medical or surgical study or dissection, the body must be disposed of, and the burial must be paid for, by the political subdivision in which the dead person had a legal residence.

HB 240 defines “legal residence” as a permanent place of abode used or occupied as living quarters at the time of an individual’s death, including a nursing home, hospital or other care facility.

With regard to coroner eligibility, Huffman said current law states that no person shall be eligible for the office except a physician who has been licensed to practice in Ohio for a period of at least two years immediately preceding election or appointment as a coroner and is in good standing in their profession.

“For a medical examiner in a charter county, the two-year residency requirement would be deleted in order to attract a wider range of forensic pathologist candidates from across the country,” he said. “Additionally, HB 240 provides that if, in the result of a death or resignation of a county coroner, the board of county commissioners may contract with another county’s coroner to assume those duties if no one runs for the open vacancy.”

If another county’s coroner steps in to contract with the vacancy, that coroner with whom the board contracts may receive supplemental payment for the services rendered.

“However, the duration of the contract shall not extend beyond the last day of the term for which there was a vacancy,” Huffman said.

The lawmaker went on to note the bill’s clarifications relating to compensation.

Huffman said deputy sheriffs or law enforcement officers acting as coroner investigators would be able to receive compensation from the coroner’s budget.

The bill also provides additional compensation to certified forensic pathologist coroners and forensic autopsy center coroners.

“HB 240 allows coroners to change from a higher salary to lower salary during their term, if at the beginning of the term they elected not to have a private practice of medicine, but during the term circumstances arose which necessitated return to the private practice of medicine,” Huffman said.

“All of these compensation changes are revenue neutral clarifications which merely help counties more responsibly utilize their current available funds.”

According to a bill summary, continuing law requires a coroner to take charge and possession of all money, clothing and other valuable personal effects of a deceased person whose body is unclaimed and who met death as a result of criminal or other violent means, by casualty, suicide or in any suspicious or unusual manner, when any person, including a child under 2 years of age, dies suddenly when in apparent good health, or when any developmentally disabled person dies regardless of the circumstances.

The coroner is required to store the money, clothing and effects in the coroner’s office or storage provided by the board of county commissioners.

Current law requires the coroner to sell at public auction the valuable personal effects of the deceased, except firearms, which must be delivered to the chief of police of the municipal corporation within which the body is found, or to the sheriff of the county if the body is not found within a municipal corporation.

HB 240 requires that the coroner deliver a deceased person’s firearm to the police chief or county sheriff only if the firearm is needed as evidence, and to otherwise deliver the firearm to the appointed and qualified administrator or executor of the deceased person’s estate.

The bill would limit the requirement that the coroner sell a deceased person’s personal effects at public auction to only cases in which the cost of the person’s burial is paid by the county.

With regard to autopsy costs of inmates, the measure states that the procedure would be paid for by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections or the Ohio Department of Youth Services.

“These are all simple, logical changes that have been made to improve our already excellent county coroner system,” Huffman said. “Each change will better equip county coroners to do their job to the best of their abilities while better utilizing scarce county resources.”

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