More than 50% of all deaths in Sacramento County are reportable Coroner's Office cases as required by the Government Code and Health and Safety Code.
All reported cases involve a Deputy Coroner investigative component and approximately 20% require an autopsy, external body review, or medical record evaluation by the Coroner's Office to determine the cause of death.
There are five classifications for the manner of death in Coroner cases:
- Accident - Accidental death including drowning, accidental overdose, falls, motor vehicle accidents, etc.
- Natural - Any natural disease process including, but not limited to, heart disease, SIDS, chronic ethanol abuse, etc.
- Suicide - Action taken by someone to end their own life. It must be an overt action versus a habitual action.
- Homicide - When a person is killed by one or more persons. This is different than "murder". Murder is the "unlawful" taking of a human life by another. For example, if a police officer kills someone in the line of duty, it is a homicide but it is not necessarily a murder. All murders are homicides, but all homicides are not murders.
- Undetermined - Usually an interim classification, indicating a level of uncertainty about the circumstances surrounding a death, which is usually changed once the results of the autopsy are received. Sometimes, however, the cause of death and/or the circumstances of the death cannot be fully determined, in which case, the classification remains undetermined.
