Florida Statute 406.11
“Examinations, investigations, and autopsies”
What it means
Some deaths are not released to the family right away. Florida Statute 406.11 gives the district medical examiner jurisdiction when a person dies in Florida of criminal violence, by accident, by suicide, suddenly while in apparent good health, unattended by a practicing physician, in prison or police custody, in suspicious or unusual circumstances, by criminal abortion, by poison, by a disease constituting a threat to public health, or from employment-related disease or injury. It also covers a body brought into the state without proper medical certification and any body that is to be cremated, dissected, or buried at sea.
In those cases the examiner — not the family — determines the cause of death, and may perform whatever autopsies and laboratory examinations he or she deems necessary, or that the state attorney requests.
- Twelve categories of in-state death trigger jurisdiction — including accident, suicide, sudden death in apparent good health, unattended death, custody deaths, poison, and suspicious circumstances.
- Every body to be cremated, dissected, or buried at sea falls under the examiner's jurisdiction, whatever the cause of death.
- The examiner may perform any autopsy or laboratory examination deemed necessary to establish identity, cause, or manner of death — family consent is not required.
- A medical examiner may not retain or furnish body parts for unrelated research without notifying and getting approval from the next of kin.
- The Medical Examiners Commission must adopt rules for notifying the next of kin that an investigation is under way.
How it plays out
The practical effect in probate is timing: nothing about the funeral, and sometimes little about the estate, moves until the examiner releases the body and certifies a cause of death. We tell families to expect this whenever a death was sudden, unattended, or accidental — and because every cremation passes through the examiner's review, even routine cases touch this office. The autopsy decision belongs to the examiner, not the family, which surprises people on both sides of wanting one.
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