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New York Public Health - Title 2 - § 4210 Cadavers; Right to Dissect

Legal Research Home > New York Laws > New York Public Health (PBH) > New York Public Health - Title 2 - § 4210 Cadavers; Right to Dissect

 
    § 4210. Cadavers; right to dissect. The right to dissect the body of a
  deceased person exists in the following cases:
    1. In the cases prescribed by special statutes; or,
    2.  When  the  dissection is performed by or at the direction of (a) a
  coroner who is a physician licensed to practice medicine in this  state,
  or  (b) a coroner's physician, or (c) a medical examiner of a county, or
  is performed at  the  direction  jointly  of  a  coroner  and  coroner's
  physician, and is performed in the course of an investigation within the
  jurisdiction  of  the officer performing or directing the dissection, or
  is performed upon  the  written  request  of  a  district  attorney,  or
  sheriff, or the chief of a police department of a city or county, or the
  superintendent of state police.
    The commissioner shall adopt regulations to establish standard autopsy
  protocols  for  any  person  under  the  age  of one year who dies under
  circumstances in which death is not anticipated by  medical  history  or
  the  cause  is  unknown.  Such  regulations  and autopsy protocols shall
  include but not be limited to (i) requirements for  the  performance  of
  such  autopsies,  subject  to  the  limitations  provided for in section
  forty-two hundred ten-c of this title, and (ii) delineation of specific,
  standardized methods for such autopsies. In developing and  implementing
  such  regulations  and  protocols,  the  commissioner shall consult with
  health professionals, families and other persons  participating  in  the
  implementation  of  the  sudden infant death syndrome program authorized
  pursuant to section twenty-five hundred-b  of  this  chapter  and  at  a
  minimum  shall consult with an epidemiologist, a forensic pathologist, a
  pediatric pathologist, a  medical  examiner,  a  county  coroner  and  a
  pediatrician with expertise in sudden infant death syndrome; or,
    3.  Whenever  and  so  far  as the husband, wife or next of kin of the
  deceased, being charged  by  law  with  the  duty  of  burial,  (a)  may
  authorize  dissection  for the sole purpose of ascertaining the cause of
  death, or (b) may authorize dissection for any other purpose by  written
  instrument  which shall specify the purpose and extent of the dissection
  so authorized, and when a dissection is so authorized pursuant  to  this
  subdivision  the  person authorizing the dissection also may designate a
  physician licensed in any state or country to observe  such  dissection.
  If  the  deceased  has upon his person an identification card indicating
  his opposition to  the  dissection  or  autopsy  of  his  body  no  such
  dissection or autopsy shall be performed except as required by law; or,
    4.  Whenever  any district attorney in this state, in the discharge of
  his official duties, shall  deem  it  necessary,  he  may  exhume,  take
  possession  of, and remove the body of a deceased person, or any portion
  thereof,  and  submit  the  same  to  a  proper  physical  or   chemical
  examination,  or analysis, to ascertain the cause of death, and the same
  shall be made on the order of any justice of the supreme court  of  this
  state,  or  the county judge of the county in which such dead body shall
  be, which order shall  be  made  on  the  application  of  the  district
  attorney  with or without notice to the relatives of the deceased person
  or to any person or corporation having the legal charge of such body, as
  the court may direct. Said district attorney shall have power to  direct
  any  police  officer  or  peace  officer, acting pursuant to his special
  duties, of this state, or to employ such person, or persons  as  he  may
  deem necessary to assist him in exhuming, removing, obtaining possession
  of  and examining physically or chemically such dead body or any portion
  thereof. The expense therefor shall be a county charge, to  be  paid  by
  the county treasurer on the certificate of the district attorney.

Last modified: February 17, 2012