Manner of death

In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic.

A coroner is a government official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within the coroner's jurisdiction.

In some cases an autopsy is performed, either due to general legal requirements, because the medical cause of death is uncertain, upon the request of family members or guardians, or because the circumstances of death were suspicious. Almost all deaths certified by the coroner involve an autopsy but most do not involve a formal inquest.

An autopsy is frequently performed in cases of sudden death, where a doctor is not able to write a death certificate, or when death is believed to result from an unnatural cause.

Within the United States and the United Kingdom, a distinction is made between the cause of death (sometimes referred to as the "mechanism of death"), which is a specific disease or injury, versus manner of death, which is primarily a legal determination.

The cause of death is a specific disease or injury, in contrast to the manner of death which is a small number of categories like "natural", "accident", and "homicide", which have different legal implications.

An accidental death is an unnatural death that is caused by an accident such as a slip and fall, traffic collision, or accidental poisoning.

Almost all deaths certified by the coroner involve an autopsy but most do not involve a formal inquest.

Misadventure is a legally defined manner of death: a way by which an actual cause of death (trauma, exposure, etc.) was allowed to occur.

In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic.

In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic.

In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic.

International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes can be used to record manner and cause of death in a systematic way that makes it easy to compile statistics and more feasible to compare events across jurisdictions.

For example, a person dying from complications from influenza (an infection), a heart attack (an internal body malfunction), or sudden heart failure would most likely be listed as having died from natural causes.

For example, a person dying from complications from influenza (an infection), a heart attack (an internal body malfunction), or sudden heart failure would most likely be listed as having died from natural causes.

For example, a person dying from complications from influenza (an infection), a heart attack (an internal body malfunction), or sudden heart failure would most likely be listed as having died from natural causes.

"Death by natural causes" is sometimes used as a euphemism for "dying of old age", which is considered problematic as a cause of death (as opposed to a specific age-related disease); there are also many non-age-related causes of "natural" death, for legal manner-of-death purposes.

An unnatural death results from an external cause, typically including homicides, suicides, accidents, medical errors, drug overdoses.

An unnatural death results from an external cause, typically including homicides, suicides, accidents, medical errors, drug overdoses.

"Mechanism of death" is sometimes used to refer to the proximate cause of death, which might differ than the cause that is used to classify the manner of death.

For example, the proximate cause or mechanism of death might be brain ischemia (lack of blood flow to the brain), caused by a malignant neoplasm (cancer), in turn caused by a dose of ionizing radiation administered by a person with intent to kill or injure, leading to certification of the manner of death as "homicide".

For example, the proximate cause or mechanism of death might be brain ischemia (lack of blood flow to the brain), caused by a malignant neoplasm (cancer), in turn caused by a dose of ionizing radiation administered by a person with intent to kill or injure, leading to certification of the manner of death as "homicide".

For example, the proximate cause or mechanism of death might be brain ischemia (lack of blood flow to the brain), caused by a malignant neoplasm (cancer), in turn caused by a dose of ionizing radiation administered by a person with intent to kill or injure, leading to certification of the manner of death as "homicide".

In the United States, a manner of death is expressed as belonging to one classification of a group of six possible:

Suicide, for example, may invalidate claims under terms of such a contract.

Deaths caused by capital punishment, though homicides, are generally assumed to be lawful and are not prosecuted.