Our Mission: Empower Alabama’s Coroner’s through education
The Coroner’s Training Commission was established in 2007 by Alabama Code § 11-5-31 (1975) . This code sets-forth the members, duties, and responasbilites of the Training Commission.
Additionally, when establishing the Coroners Training Commission the Alabama Legislature made the findings:
§ 11-5-30 (1975) (a) The Legislature hereby finds, determines, and declares all of the following:
(1) An unattended and sudden death is one of society’s most tragic events and should receive the appropriate caring, competent, and thorough attention of all levels of government.
(2) A suspicious, sudden, or violent death is very difficult to investigate and to accurately determine the cause and manner of death for the death certificate.
(3) Medical examiners and coroners determine the cause of death and with other forensic scientists and investigators determine the manner of death.
(4) Death certificates issued on unattended, sudden, and violent deaths greatly impact government spending decisions, the living loved ones, and insurance decisions so that the accuracy of the death certificate is of great concern to the Legislature.
(5) There are currently no minimum standards of training for county coroners.
(6) Local coroners or non-physician death investigators are necessary and critical to the investigation of unattended deaths in Alabama.
(7) The competency of unattended death investigations is directly related to the minimum education and training standards of the investigators and standards need to be established and implemented statewide.
(b) The provisions of this article are to be liberally construed to accomplish the purposes of this section and to promote the same, which are hereby declared to be public policy of this state.
Educational Standards
Ala. Code § 11-5-31 (1975) establishes the Coroner’s Training Commission and places the following responsibilities upon all Elected or Appointed Coroner’s and Deputy Coroner’s in this state:
§ 11-5-31 (e) Effective March 1, 2007, any coroner, deputy coroner, or any person authorized to officially represent the county coroner shall complete 12 hours of training, approved by the commission, during each calendar year he or she serves as coroner.
A Coroner or Deputy Coroner who fails to complete require training is subject to suspension according to:
§ 11-5-31 (g) A coroner or his or her designated assistant who fails to complete the minimum annual inservice training required by this article may be suspended from office, without pay, by the Governor for not more than 90 days. At the end of the suspension period, the Governor may continue the suspension of the coroner and his or her designated assistants until he or she completes the annual minimum inservice training
Finally, the Coroner’s Training Commission has the authority to increase the 12 hour training requirement based on:
§ 11-5-31 (i) From time to time, the commission may establish more stringent standards which are reasonable and prudent to improve the quality of investigation and the certification of unattended deaths in this state.