The office of state medical examiners shall have the authority to make postmortem examinations, to undertake inquests, and to perform autopsies where there may be in its judgment a reasonable belief that the manner of death could be pronounced as:

(1)  Death by a homicide, suicide, or casualty;

(2)  Death due to a criminal abortion;

(3)  Death due to an accident involving lack of due care on the part of a person other than the deceased;

(4)  Death which is the immediate or remote consequences of any physical or toxic injury incurred while the deceased person was employed;

(5)  Death due to the use of addictive or unidentifiable chemical agents; or

(6)  Death due to an infectious agent capable of spreading an epidemic within the state.

History of Section.
P.L. 1973, ch. 169, § 1.