Bicycling
Medical Examiner "accident" finding causes confusion
WTOP created some consternation among cyclists last night with its brief news item entitled, "Cyclist death officially ruled an accident."
Photo by drewsaunders.
The article says that the Medical Examiner's office "has ruled the death of bicyclist Constance Holden an accident." At first blush, it looks like the city's investigatory apparatus has again dismissed a cyclist's death, and so quickly. However, this is not the conclusion of the crash investigation, which will take more time. This is just the medical examiner's classification.
Medical examiners assign a "manner of death" to each fatality, and it falls into a small number of fixed categories. In DC, those are "natural, accident, suicide, homicide, undetermined, and pending."
In short, when the Medical Examiner says "accident" here, they don't mean "accidental" as in "unpreventable," but "accidental" as in "not deliberate." There's no way for the M.E. to determine the circumstances that led to the victim being hit with "multiple blunt impact injuries." They are basically just concluding that, for example, Ms. Holden didn't also suffer a heart attack just before the crash, or that after the crash someone didn't also shoot her while she was still alive.
This is a particularly clear example of the problems with using the word "accident" to talk about traffic crashes. All the Medical Examiner determined was that the crash was the cause of Ms. Holden's death. Yet using the term "accident" as the manner of death implies that the M.E. has determined more than that; that they've also determined nobody was at fault. That's not what they are saying, but many people could and did jump to that conclusion upon reading a fairly non-insightful news article.
The problems with this medical examiner's classification scheme go beyond just traffic incidents. Last year, I sat on a jury in a murder trial. The decedent had died from falling and hitting his head on a step. The prosecution argued another man had hit him with an unknown object first, causing him to pass out and fall; the defense argued he was drunk and fell on his own.
The DC Medical Examiner classified the death a homicide. However, the defense argued that they had done so in part because they had seen the police report which talked about this other man. If there had been nobody else there, said the defense, would they still have ruled it a homicide? How did they really know? It was difficult to separate out how much of the M.E.'s conclusion came from scientific evidence and how much came from outside information.
The Public Defender Service brought in Delaware's Chief Medical Examiner, who said he would have ruled it an accident. Putting these classifications on seems to only serve to try to prejudice juries one way or the other. The scientific expert thinks it's a homicide, so it must be a homicide, some might think, even though that scientific expert is really just coming to that conclusion because that's what the police already think.
It does a disservice to Constance Holden to say that her death was "officially ruled an accident." Her death was officially determined to have occurred as a consequence of the injuries she sustained from her encounter with a large military truck. How that truck came to be in contact with her body, and whether that was blamelessly accidental, negligence, involuntary manslaughter (a form of homicide) or something else is for the police investigators to determine, not the Medical Examiner.
 | David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington. He has had a lifelong interest in great cities and great communities. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.   |
Comments
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By this reasoning couldn't someone who was struck in the back of the head while taking a shower be ruled an "accident" because the situation could assume that they had slipped? Or could someone have been ruled a "homicide" even though it was really an accident, if they fell off a fifth-floor balcony?
How could a police report NOT factor into that ruling? This seems also wishy-washy as to how a "homicide" could even be declared or how a concerete "accident" could be used without analyzing witnesses' intent.
by SDJ on Apr 16, 2010 10:47 am
by David Alpert on Apr 16, 2010 11:43 am
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accident
by Lance on Apr 16, 2010 12:18 pm
"Homicide" does not imply intent, knowledge, state of mind, etc. Manslaughter is homicide. Genocide is homicide. Self-defense that results in death is homicide.
But whether or not this as-yet-unnamed person intended to do so, he/she killed this woman. One human being killed another; it's homicide.
by Tim on Apr 16, 2010 12:23 pm
1. an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury
And here's the definition from M-W's dictionary of law:
an unexpected usu. sudden event that occurs without intent or volition although sometimes through carelessness, unawareness, ignorance, or a combination of causes and that produces an unfortunate result (as an injury) for which the affected party may be entitled to relief under the law or to compensation under an insurance policy.
Note: The term accident has been held to include intentional acts (such as an assault and battery) under workers' compensation laws.
I don;t see how one can look at either of those definitions and claim that "accident" does a disservice to Ms. Holden. It appears to be the correct English and Legal English term.
by jcm on Apr 16, 2010 12:42 pm
If the Medical Examiner classifies deaths based on, basically, whether they were self-induced, intentional, natural, accidental, or unknown, then is it really realistic for the CME to have a long-winded description of each death, rather than just a few categories?
The CME's report would conclude, correctly, that the death was accidental and the cause was (I would imagine) blunt force trauma.
The CME never determines fault or liability; that's for the investigators and, possibly, a jury.
It's pretty hard to see how this classification of Ms Holden's death does any sort of disservice to her or somehow lessens the tragedy.
by Fritz on Apr 16, 2010 1:44 pm
by Bossi on Apr 16, 2010 1:58 pm
by Jasper on Apr 16, 2010 2:17 pm
I have a close family member who is a retired physician and works part-time as an M.E. He has said he deffers to the police on any "suspicious death". He said there is very rarely anything besides "natural causes" but when there is, he defers to police. In his jurisdiction "any suspicious death" is one that takes place outside a hospital/hospice/clinic/without a medical professional witness, i.e. at home while the decedent was sleeping, or on a street corner. All "suspicious deaths" require an M.E. call to the scene.
The DC M.E. classifications can be updated to include "unintentional injury" so they are compatible with national data. This would clarify any confusion/ambiguity as to COD. As to the M.E.'s penchant for deferring to the police, I don't know how that can be as objectively changed. But in this case if there had been a category called "unintentional injury" surely the police would have choosen it.
by Bianchi on Apr 16, 2010 3:00 pm
P.S. there's a national mortality category called "unintentional homicide" too.
by Bianchi on Apr 16, 2010 3:15 pm
I was also confused by this. I thought that the medical examiner just determined the cause of death like "blunt trauma to the head" or something. Commenters here are right that in order to say it was an "accident" or a "homicide" you'd have to look at the police report.
by MLD on Apr 16, 2010 5:18 pm
Assuming this was in fact a 'medical examiner', then your assumption is wrong. From what I'm finding, his/her job is to determine the nature of the death ... Not to the extent of determing whether there was gross negligence, contributory negligence, or even wrong doing leading to something as serious as 'involuntary manslaugther', but at least to the extent to being able to say tha this wasn't a deliberate (or more accurately) a 'planned' event. Look below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_examiner
A medical examiner is a medically qualified government officer whose duty is to investigate deaths and injuries that occur under unusual or suspicious circumstances, to perform post-mortem examinations, and in some jurisdictions to initiate inquests.
In some jurisdictions with English origins or history, a coroner performs these and other duties.
Qualifications
A medical examiner is usually required to have a medical degree and a law degree, often with additional education in forensic pathology.12, A medical examiner is typically an appointed officer.
Now, can we all agree that the medical examiner has deemed this an accident, and that there was no foul-play involved? I.e., this National Guardsman out doing his duty, didn't set out to 'kill' someone as the law (and common sense) defines it.
by Lance on Apr 16, 2010 6:32 pm
Years ago, DC had a coroner and a coroner's jury who determined if a death were homicide, etc. After several notorious rulings of justifiable homicide by DC police officers, the system was abolished. The ME found the medical reasons. The US Attorney and grand jury determined if their should be a trial, etc.
by Carl Bergman on Apr 17, 2010 4:51 pm
by danindc on Apr 18, 2010 4:10 am
How do you know what is the appropriate level of security? Are you a security expert? What I question is your qualifications to decide that this was excessive, wasteful, or inappropriate. Given that the whole thing went off without any assassinations, and only 1 collateral incident, I'd call it a success. Not an unqualified success because of that tragic traffic accident, but the objective of providing a safe meeting place for those with the power to help make this a safer world for all of was met.
by Lance on Apr 18, 2010 4:10 pm
Then we can all go back to presuming what we want. (I'm going with homicide).
by Ward 1 Guy on Apr 19, 2010 3:25 pm
by Lance on Apr 19, 2010 5:06 pm
by Lance on Apr 19, 2010 5:14 pm
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