Death investigations are conducted by a county coroner or medical examiner.
County Coroner. The county coroner is an elected position whose primary function is death investigations. In a county with a population of 250,000 or more, the county legislative authority may, upon majority vote at an election called by the county legislative authority, adopt a system under which a medical examiner may be appointed to replace the office of the coroner.
The coroner is responsible for making determinations about the cause, manner, and mechanism of death in those cases falling under their jurisdiction. The jurisdiction of the coroner extends to the bodies of all deceased persons who come to their death in a variety of circumstances set forth in statute, including:
Vital Statistics Program at the Department of Health. The Department of Health (DOH) collects and stores all reports of specific vital life events in the state. These vital life events are births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages, marriage and domestic partnership dissolutions, marriage and domestic partnership annulments, and legal separations. Under current law, DOH retains permanent custody of all vital records in its statewide vital records system. The state registrar of vital statistics oversees the system and is responsible for the system's operations and integrity. The state registrar also develops uniform vital statistics reporting requirements and forms for local registrars across the state.
A criminal justice integrated data system is created to receive, store, secure, and maintain data and information from local governments, state agencies and departments, or volunteer nongovernmental entities. The data system will be managed by DOH, and the data is exempt from public disclosure. A data oversight council (council) is created to be convened and chaired by DOH. The 15-member council has the following entities or their representative:
The council has authority to approve requests for projects, reports, and data analyses generated from the criminal justice integrated data system.
A violence and death investigation resource center (resource center) is created within DOH. The resource center must:
A forensic pathologist must serve as the director of the resource center. The resource center shall submit an annual report to the Legislature detailing the center's work, including trends in violence and deaths from the previous year, and providing recommendations to support medical examiner and coroner offices and improve death investigations in the state.
The director of the resource center, nominated by DOH, shall serve as a member of the Washington State forensic investigations council.