Coroner

[L. Lat. coronator, from corona, the crown. See infra.l A county officer of great antiquity at the common law, whose powers and duties are both judicial and ministerial, but principally the former. It has always been his peculiar office to inquire into the causes of violent or sudden deaths, by a jury of proper persons, upon view of the dead body, {super visum corporis.) Bract, fol.

121. Stat. 4 £dw. 1.

De officio coronatoris.

1 BL Com. 346, 348. 3 Steph. Com. 33—36.

Another branch of his judicial office is to inquire concerning shipwrecks, and certify whether wreck or not, and who is in possession of the goods; and also to inquire concerning treasure trove, who were the finders and where it is, and whether any one be suspected of having found and concealed a treasure. Bract, fol.

121, 122. 1 Bl. Com. 349.

The ministerial office of the coroner is only as the sheriff 's substitute in executing process.

3 Steph. Com. 37.

This was a part of his duty as early as the time of Bracton.

Bract, fol, 75.

Coroners are also, by virtue of their office, conservators of the public peace. Britt. c.

1. 1 Bl. Com. 347.

See Conservator of the peace. All these duties continue to be attached to the office of coroner in the United States.

2 N. Y. Rev. St. [742], 622, § 1, et seq. 1 Id. [690], 688, § 2. Id. [380—382, §§ 78—86;] 373, 874, §§ 89—97.

See U. S. Digest, Coroner. The name coroner seems clearly derived from the important part which the officer bearing it originally took in the prosecution of those offences which concerned the crown, (L. Fr. corone; Lat. corona.) 2 Reeves^ Hist. Eng. Law, 12. The coroner {coronator) is first mentioned by name in Magna Chftrta, (c. 17); although allu Bion ib made to the office in the capitula of Henry II. and in those given in the reign of Richard I. to the justices in eyre, wherein they were commissioned to choose three knights and one clerk in every county to be custodies placitorum corona, Crabh's Hist. Ei\>g.

Law, 150.

According to the Mirror, (c. 1, § 3,^ the office was established by the Saxon kings, but it b most probable that it was created soon after the conquest; the coroner being appointed, together with the sheriff, to keep the peace, when the earls gave up the wardship of the county. Crah Vs Hist. 1 49, 1 50. 1 hi. Com. 347. The word itself seems to be essentially French, being constantly used by Britton in his first chapter, which is entitled " De Coroners:' The office of coroner has, in modem times, retained but a trace of its ancient dignity and importance. Coroners are declared in Britton to be, in every county, the principal keepers of the peaee, to bear record of pleas of the crown. Their duties (which are minutely described m the first chapter of this author, and in the second tract of the third book of Bracton, entitled '* De corona") embraced not only the modern duty of holdmg inquests over the bodies of persons slain or suddenly deceased, but the examination of the bodies of living persons who had been wounded or otherwise corporally injured, the taking of criminal appeals, abjurations of the realm, <&c. An important feature of their ancient office was the keeping of rolls or records of every thing done before them, which rolls were sometimes received as conclusive evidence. Bract, fol. 140 b, lib. 3, tr. 2, c. 20.

See Counter Roll.