They are appointed by local authorities as independent experts and must be either qualified doctors or lawyers. Their primary function is to investigate any sudden, unexplained, violent or unnatural death in order to allow a death certificate to be issued.

Should a coroner be elected or appointed?

Coroners are elected lay people who often do not have professional training, whereas medical examiners are appointed and have board-certification in a medical specialty. ... "They determine the cause of death from a medical standpoint.

Why do coroners get elected?

Electing a coroner is a holdover from medieval English common law, where the coroner's job was to determine how and when people had died in order to collect taxes. That system worked in early America, too. And in a lot of places, if the sheriff committed a crime, it was the coroner's job to make the arrest.