A coroner is a government official who investigates the cause and manner of a death, including cases that involve violence or controversy. A sheriff is a chief law enforcement officer in charge of preventing crime, making arrests and jailing accused or convicted people.
They’re two very different jobs that routinely come into conflict. A good example is a case in which sheriff’s deputies arrest a person who then dies in their custody. It may be in the sheriff’s political interest to show that some underlying medical condition caused the death rather than a chokehold or some other controversial or unlawful tactic used by the deputies. Law enforcement agencies and officers sometimes cite “excited delirium” — a controversial and not universally accepted diagnosis of extreme anxiety potentially resulting in death — especially when the victim is Black. A sheriff who also is the coroner can interfere with the staff pathologists’ work and write a report that rejects medical and scientific findings to present a pro-law-enforcement conclusion.
Yet sheriff-coroners are the norm in California; in 48 of the 58 counties, the elected sheriff is also the coroner. State law permits counties to combine various offices to save costs, and those decisions are generally best left to local governments — except when efficiency and local control undermine truth, justice and accountability.
