US Laws, Codes, Statutes & Cases

 
    § 557. Chief medical examiner. (a) There shall be in the department an
  independent office of chief medical examiner, the head of which shall be
  the chief medical examiner, who shall be appointed by the mayor from the
  classified  civil  service  and  be  a  doctor of medicine and a skilled
  pathologist and microscopist. The mayor may  remove  the  chief  medical
  examiner  upon  filing  in  the  office  of the commissioner of citywide
  administrative services and serving upon the chief medical examiner  his
  or  her  reasons  therefor  and  allowing such officer an opportunity of
  making a public explanation.
    (b) The commissioner with respect  to  the  office  of  chief  medical
  examiner shall exercise the powers and duties set forth in paragraph one
  of subdivision a of section five hundred fifty-five of this chapter, but
  shall  not  interfere with the performance by the chief medical examiner
  or his or her  office  of  the  powers  and  duties  prescribed  by  the
  provisions of this section or any other law.
    (c)  The  chief  medical  examiner  may appoint and remove such deputy
  chief medical examiners, associate medical examiners, assistant  medical
  examiners,  junior medical examiners, medical investigators, lay medical
  investigators, scientific experts and other officers  and  employees  as
  may  be  provided for in the budget. The deputy chief medical examiners,
  associate medical examiners,  assistant  medical  examiners  and  junior
  medical  examiners  shall  possess  the same basic qualifications as the
  chief medical examiner. The medical investigators  shall  be  physicians
  duly  licensed  to  practice medicine in the state of New York and shall
  possess such  additional  qualifications  as  may  be  required  by  the
  department of citywide administrative services.
    (d)  The  office  shall  be kept open every day in the year, including
  Sundays and legal holidays, with a clerk  in  attendance  at  all  times
  during the day and night.
    (e) The chief medical examiner or his or her designee shall have power
  to  require the attendance and take testimony under oath of such persons
  as he or she may deem necessary and to require the production of  books,
  accounts,  papers  and  other evidence relative to any matter within the
  jurisdiction of the office.
    (f) The chief medical examiner shall have such powers  and  duties  as
  may  be  provided  by  law  in  respect  to bodies of persons dying from
  criminal violence, by casualty, by suicide, suddenly  when  in  apparent
  health, when unattended by a physician, in a correctional facility or in
  any  suspicious  or  unusual  manner  or  where  an  application is made
  pursuant to law for a permit to cremate the body of a person.
    (g) The chief medical examiner shall keep full and complete records in
  such form as may be provided by law. The chief  medical  examiner  shall
  promptly  deliver  to  the  appropriate  district attorney copies of all
  records relating to every death as to which there is, in the judgment of
  the medical examiner in charge,  any  indication  of  criminality.  Such
  records shall not be open to public inspection.