The Concept of an Optimum Model of Criminal Post-Mortem Diagnostics

Abstract

The establishment of the exact time and cause of death plays an important role in criminal investigation and criminal law. In violent deaths, where a suspicion that a criminal offence has been committed arises, investigation often focuses on a specific suspect on the basis of a clearly established time and cause of death, or on the examination of other important circumstances surrounding the death in order to close the circle of alleged suspects. An exact post-mortem diagnosis of the time and cause of death requires multidisciplinary cooperation between the police, who establish relevant circumstances surrounding the death, and a physician, who performs a post-mortem examination of the body. This is why the present paper considers post-mortem diagnostics both as part of criminal differential diagnosis and as part of medical post-mortem diagnostics. The competent and quality performance of post-mortem diagnostics is in many ways affected by organisational and cognitive factors.

This study presents an analysis of legal arrangements governing the work of post-mortem examination services in Germany, Austria, Croatia and Slovenia, and identifies good and bad practices on the basis of professional opinions expressed by experts working in the field of criminal investigation and forensic medicine in comparable countries. Results and findings represent a useful basis for the formulation of a proposal for a new model of post-mortem examination service presented in the last section of this paper. The proposed model provides a basis for achieving qualitative progress in the field of post-mortem diagnostics not only in Slovenia but also in other countries of continental Europe.