Jurisdiction in forensic autopsy

[sydneygb]

If a wanted criminal, someone high on the FBI's Most Wanted list, was murdered by an unknown assailant, who would have the jurisdiction over the autopsy? I presume that a forensic would be ordered because 1) he's been murdered and 2) he's a wanted criminal. The man in question is not a US citizen, but he's murdered in Washington, DC

Comments

[zinnea]

IIf the man died in in DC there is no question of jurisdiction - the DC OCME would be responsible for performing the autopsy. The FBI doesn't really do a lot of autopsies; most of their lab work involving human remain focuses on DNA tracing and anthropological work. There really isn't a plausible way for another agency to claim jurisdiction.

Additionally, to even get into the lab the fakers would have to bypass an awful lot of security checkpoints during the day when there are plenty of security officers around; if this is a high profile FBI case there will be plenty of FBI agents on hand, there will be city police on hand, there may be other government officials on hand. Depending on what the criminal was wanted for, there may also be Secret Service agents on hand and since a foreign national high ranked on the Most Wanted listed would more likely than not be wanted for terrorism, there could be some Homeland Security agents on hand, too. Pity the poor pathology staff who have to do their work with all these people hanging about. Your fakers could possibly get as close as being able to observe the body but there's no realistic way they're getting their hands on it, much less removing it from the facility.

The most plausible way for your fakers to just waltz out with the body, so the speak. If you really need them to take physical possession of the corpse, the most believeable storyline is to have them break in at night and steal it, something which mercifully doesn't happen very often in real life but could.

[uplinktruck]

What zinnea said. Great post too.