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 129, LD 0673
Committee: Judiciary
Sponsors: MOONEN, BAILEY
Amends: 22 MRSA §3025, 32 MRSA §1405

Legislative Document
No. 673
H.P. 494
House of Representatives, February 7, 2019
An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Circumstances of Death 
That Must Be Reported to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner
Reference to the Committee on Judiciary suggested and ordered printed.
ROBERT B. HUNT
Clerk
Presented by Representative MOONEN of Portland.
Cosponsored by Representative: BAILEY of Saco.
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 subsection, 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;
Sec. 3.  32 MRSA §1405, 2nd ¶, as amended by PL 2017, c. 284, Pt. GGG, §1, is 
further amended to read:
The body of a deceased person may not be cremated within 48 hours after death 
unless the person died of a contagious or infectious disease, and in no event may the body 
of a deceased person be cremated, buried at sea, used by medical science or removed 
from the State until the person, firm or corporation in charge of the disposition has 
received a certificate from a duly appointed medical examiner or medicolegal death 
investigator appointed pursuant to Title 22, section 3023-A that the medical examiner or 
medicolegal death investigator has made personal inquiry into the cause and manner of 
death and is satisfied that further examination or judicial inquiry concerning the cause 
and manner of death is not necessary.  This certificate, a certified copy of the death 
certificate and a burial transit permit when presented by the authorized person as defined 
in Title 22, section 2846 is sufficient authority for cremation, burial at sea, use by medical 
science or removal from the State, and the person, firm or corporation in charge of the 
disposition may not refuse to cremate or otherwise dispose of the body solely because 
these documents are presented by such an authorized person.  The certificate must be 
retained by the person, firm or corporation in charge of the cremation or disposition for a 
period of 15 years. For the certificate, the medical examiner must receive a fee of $25 
payable by the person requesting the certificate.  This fee may be waived at the discretion 
of the Chief Medical Examiner.
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.
3.  It allows a duly appointed medicolegal death investigator, in addition to a medical 
examiner, to certify that further examination or judicial inquiry concerning the cause and 
manner of death of a person is not necessary.