Title 17, Criminal Procedures

Before the coroner is qualified to act, he must take and subscribe the constitutional oath of office and also the additional oath required by Section 8-3-20. When a person has been elected or designated for appointment to the office of coroner and has taken and subscribed the oat…

The commission must fix the salary of the medical examiner. The medical examiner, with the approval of the county medical examiner commission, must fix (1) the salaries of the deputy medical examiners and all employees in the charge of the medical examiner and (2) all fees paid f…

A coroner shall serve a term of office for four years and until his successor is elected or appointed and qualifies.

As used in this chapter: (1) "Autopsy" means the dissection of a dead body and the removal and examination of bone, tissue, organs, and foreign objects for the purpose of determining the cause of death and manner of death. (2) "Cause of death" refers to the agent that has directl…

(A) Except as provided in subsection (B), in the event of a vacancy in the office of coroner, the Governor shall fill the office by appointing a qualified replacement to serve until the earlier of the following: (1) the next general election for the office of coroner; or (2) the …

In counties which have both a coroner and a medical examiner: (1) the coroner has the ultimate responsibility for carrying out the duties required by this article; (2) the medical examiner's duties must be specified in an annual written contract between the county governing body …

(A) In addition to the powers vested in other law enforcement officials to order an autopsy, the coroner or medical examiner is authorized to determine that an autopsy be made. (B) The coroner or medical examiner immediately shall request an autopsy if a child's death occurs as d…

(A) If a person dies: (1) as a result of violence; (2) as a result of apparent suicide; (3) when in apparent good health; (4) when unattended by a physician; (5) in any suspicious or unusual manner; (6) while an inmate of a penal or correctional institution; (7) as a result of st…

(A) Photographs, videos, or other visual images and audio recordings of or related to the performance of an autopsy shall only be viewed by or disseminated to: (1) the coroner or the medical examiner, or both, and their staff; (2) members of law enforcement agencies, for official…

The coroner or medical examiner, within twenty-four hours or one working day, whichever occurs first, must notify the Department of Child Fatalities when a child dies in the county he serves: (1) as a result of violence; (2) in any suspicious or unusual manner; or (3) when the de…

(A) For the purposes of this section, "a person responsible for a child's welfare" has the same meaning as in Section 63-7-20(16). (B) The coroner of each county, within a timeframe not exceeding seven working days, shall schedule a local Child Fatality Review Team to perform a r…

(A) The purpose of the local Child Fatality Review Team is to rapidly and expeditiously review all child deaths that occur in the county in which each coroner serves. (B) To achieve this purpose, the local Child Fatality Review Team shall: (1) enter the team's findings of each re…

(A) Meetings of the Child Fatality Review Team, the "review team", are closed to the public and are not subject to Chapter 4, Title 30, the Freedom of Information Act, when the review team is discussing individual cases of child deaths. (B) Except as provided in subsection (C), m…

(A) All information, documents, and records of the Child Fatality Review team, records acquired by the review team, or records prepared by members of the review team in the exercise of their purposes and duties pursuant to this article are confidential, exempt from disclosure und…

If the home or premises last inhabited by a child is not the scene of the death of a child, the coroner or medical examiner, while conducting an investigation of the death, may petition the local magistrate of the appropriate judicial circuit for a warrant to inspect the home or …

(A) The coroner or medical examiner, within twenty- four hours or one working day, whichever occurs first, must notify the Vulnerable Adults Investigations Unit of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division or appropriate law enforcement when a vulnerable adult dies in the count…

(A) The coroner, deputy coroner, medical examiner, or deputy medical examiner must, in any case investigated, complete and sign the medical certification portion of the death certificate within twenty-four hours after being notified of the death. (B) The coroner or medical examin…

(A) After the post-mortem examination, autopsy, or inquest has been completed, the dead body must be released to the person lawfully entitled to it for burial. If no person claims the body, the coroner or medical examiner must notify the board created pursuant to Section 44-43-51…

(A)(1) It is unlawful for any person to move or authorize removal of a body from the place where the body is found until the investigation is completed and the removal is authorized by the coroner, deputy coroner, medical examiner, or deputy medical examiner in charge. (2) It is …

(A) For purposes of this section: (1) a body is unidentifiable if the dead person's identity is unknown or cannot be established after all available methods have been exhausted; and (2) a body is unclaimed if: (a) a person cannot be located to take custody of the body; or (b) the…

The coroner must keep a public office in his county which must have proper fixtures and in which he must keep his book of inquisitions.

When the body of any dead person who died in the county is to be cremated, the person who has requested the cremation must secure a permit for the cremation from the coroner, deputy coroner, medical examiner, or deputy medical examiner. A person who wilfully fails to secure a per…

If in a case of sudden, violent, or suspicious death a body is buried without an investigation by the coroner or medical examiner, a person having knowledge of this fact must notify the coroner or the medical examiner.

A county coroner shall appoint one or more deputies or investigators to be approved by the judge of the circuit or by any circuit judge presiding therein, who must take and subscribe the oath prescribed by the constitution before entering upon the duties of appointment as a deput…

No coroner may act as jailer or deputy sheriff or under any appointment by a sheriff, and if he accepts or acts under the appointment of the sheriff of his county, the coroner's office must be vacated and must be filled in the manner provided by law in case of vacancy from any ot…

The coroner of the county in which a body is found dead or the solicitor of the judicial circuit in which the county lies shall order an autopsy or post-mortem examination to be conducted to ascertain the cause of death. If any person dies while detained, incarcerated, or under t…

When the coroner upon the required preliminary examination shall determine that a formal inquest shall be held he shall make out his warrant directed to all or any of the constables of his county or to the sheriff of his county, requiring them or any of them forthwith to summon a…

The sheriff, deputy sheriff or magistrates' constable who shall be designated and directed to summon a jury of inquest as provided in SECTION 17-7-100 shall forthwith summon such jury of inquest as directed by the coroner and shall not receive any additional compensation for such…

The warrant to summon a jury shall be in this form: "The State of South Carolina, To the sheriff (or to any constable or constables, as the case may be), of __________ County, greeting: These are to require you, immediately on receipt and sight hereof, to summon and warn, verball…

Any constable or sheriff to whom such warrant shall come shall forthwith execute the warrant and repair unto the place at the time therein mentioned and make return of the warrant, with his proceedings thereon, to the coroner that granted it. Every constable or sheriff failing to…

Of the jurors summoned and appearing the coroner shall swear six and administer to the foreman, appointed by him, an oath in the form following: "You shall inquire and true presentment make on behalf of the State of South Carolina in what manner A B, here lying dead, came to his …

Whenever any county, state or municipal law enforcement agency transports a human body to a medical facility for autopsy or other medical examination to determine the cause of death, the law enforcement agency which ordered such medical examination shall provide for the return tr…

The jury so sworn shall be charged by the coroner to declare, upon oath, whether the deceased came to his death: (1) By mischance and accident or by felony; (2) If by felony, whether by his own or another's; (3) If by mischance, whether by the act of God or of man; (4) If by anot…

If the jury so charged find that the deceased came to his death by his own felony they shall further inquire into the manner, means and instrument and into all the circumstances of the death.

The coroner may issue warrants, summon witnesses and examine before the jury any person present, whether summoned or not, concerning the death. He shall serve a notice of hearing on any person who has been served with an arrest warrant charging him with causing death of the subje…

In addition to the authority contained in Section 17-7-170, a coroner also may issue subpoenas duces tecum to compel individuals to produce copies of documents or other materials which are relevant to a death investigation. Any law enforcement officer with appropriate jurisdictio…

Every person summoned or required to give evidence and disregarding such summons or refusing to testify, without such excuse as shall be lawful and sufficient, shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty dollars and shall be committed to jail by the coroner until the next court of ge…

Whenever any person shall wilfully disturb or impede the proceedings of a jury of inquest while inquiring into the cause of any death or shall offer any contempt to the person or authority of the coroner while so engaged the coroner may commit such person to the common jail of th…

Whenever a body is found dead and an investigation or inquest is deemed advisable the coroner or the magistrate acting as coroner, as the case may be, shall go to the body and examine the witnesses most likely to be able to explain the cause of death, take their testimony in writ…

A coroner may, if he deems it necessary, adjourn the jury, either from day to day or to any other day and place, to receive evidence, binding the jurors severally by one recognizance, in such amount as he shall think fit, for their appearance. Such recognizance may be estreated a…

If all or any part of the jurors shall fail to reappear at the day and place to which they were adjourned the coroner shall issue his warrant to supply the places of the absent jury or of so many of the jurors absent as may be necessary. And the jurors last summoned shall be swor…

The witnesses examined upon the inquest shall be sworn as follows, by the coroner, who may administer the oath, that is to say: "The evidence you shall give to this inquest concerning the death of A B, here lying dead, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the trut…

The testimony of all witnesses examined upon an inquest shall be taken down in writing by the coroner and signed by the witnesses. If the testimony given tends to incriminate any person as concerned in the death of the deceased the coroner shall bind over the witness who gave it,…

The jury having viewed the body, heard the evidence and made inquiry into the cause and manner of the death shall render their verdict thereon, in writing, to the coroner under their hands and seals in the manner following, which shall pass by indenture interchangeably between th…

A coroner performing an autopsy on an unidentified body must obtain tissue and fluid samples suitable for DNA identification, typing, and testing. The samples must be transmitted to the State Law Enforcement Division.

If it shall appear that the deceased was wilfully killed by another the inquisition must be concluded in this form: "And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the aforesaid J K, in manner and form aforesaid, E F then and there feloniously did kill, agai…