An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Circumstances of Death That Must Be Reported to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner
Maine Legislature, Session 128, LD 0534
Committee: Judiciary
Sponsors: MOONEN, WHITTEMORE
Amends: 22 MRSA §3025

Legislative Document
No. 534
H.P. 378
House of Representatives, February 9, 2017
An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Circumstances of Death 
That Must Be Reported to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner
Submitted by the Department of the Attorney General pursuant to Joint Rule 204.
Reference to the Committee on Judiciary suggested and ordered printed.
ROBERT B. HUNT
Clerk
Presented by Representative MOONEN of Portland.
Cosponsored by Senator WHITTEMORE of Somerset.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows: 
Sec. 1.  22 MRSA §3025, sub-§1, as amended by PL 2011, c. 420, Pt. D, §2 and 
affected by §6, is further amended to read: 
1.  Circumstances of death that must be reported.  A medical examiner case may 
exist and must be reported as provided in section 3026 when remains are found that may 
be human and raise suspicion that death has occurred under any of the following 
circumstances:  
A.  Death is suspected of having been caused by any type of physical injury, 
including poisoning, regardless of whether the suspected manner of death is 
homicide, suicide or accident.  This circumstance must be reported irrespective of 
whether the deceased had been attended by a physician, was a patient in a hospital, 
survived for a considerable time following the physical injury or died from terminal 
natural causes consequent to and following the physical injury; 
B.  Suddenly when the person is in apparent good health and has no specific natural 
disease sufficient to explain death; 
C.  During diagnostic or therapeutic procedures under circumstances indicating gross 
negligence or when clearly due to trauma or poisoning unrelated to the ordinary risks 
of those procedures; 
D.  Death when the person is in custody pursuant to an arrest, confined in a state 
correctional or detention facility, county jail, other county correctional or detention 
facility or local lockup or is on the way to or from a courthouse or any of these places 
while in the custody of a law enforcement officer or county or state corrections 
official; 
E.  Death while the person is a patient or resident of a facility of the Department of 
Health and Human Services or residential care facility maintained or licensed by the 
Department of Health and Human Services, unless clearly certifiable by an attending 
physician as due to specific natural causes; 
F.  Death suspected of being due to a threat to the public health when the authority of 
the medical examiner is needed to adequately study the case for the protection of the 
public health; 
G.  Death suspected of not having been certified, including, but not limited to, bodies 
brought into the State and any buried remains uncovered other than by legal 
exhumation; 
H.  Deaths suspected of being medical examiner cases which may have been 
improperly certified or inadequately examined, including, but not limited to, bodies 
brought into the State under those circumstances; 
I.  Sudden infant death syndrome deaths and all other deaths of children under the age 
of 18 unless clearly certifiable by an attending physician as due to specific natural 
causes unrelated to abuse or neglect; 
J.  Whenever human or possibly human remains are discovered not properly interred 
or disposed of, for which the responsibility to do so cannot be readily determined; or 
K.  Any cause when there is no attending physician capable of certifying the death as 
due to natural causes. When a person dies who is under the care of a religious 
practitioner who uses prayer and spiritual means of healing, the fact that the deceased 
has been under such religious care does not warrant suspicion of foul play or 
investigation beyond that warranted by the other facts of the case. 
In the absence of any of the circumstances outlined in this section, the fact that a patient 
dies within 24 hours of admission to a hospital or other health care facility need not be 
reported to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. 
In any case in which the necessity of a report is questionable, a report must be made. 
Sec. 2.  22 MRSA §3025, sub-§1-A, ¶A, as enacted by PL 2003, c. 433, §4, is 
amended to read: 
A.    Deaths due to the consequences of long-term alcohol use, long-term exposure to 
environmental or occupational toxins or long-term exposure to carcinogens; 
SUMMARY 
This bill amends the law governing the Department of the Attorney General, Office 
of Chief Medical Examiner as follows. 
1.  It clarifies that, absent certain other circumstances, the fact that a patient dies 
within 24 hours of admission to a hospital or other health care facility need not be 
reported to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. 
2.  It removes the requirement that deaths due to the consequences of long-term 
alcohol use be reported to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.