Category:Manners of death

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The manner of death is the determination of how the injury or disease leads to death. A place to classify manner of death was added to the US Standard Certificate of Death in 1910.

The acceptable options for manner-of-death classification are:

  • Natural
  • Accident
    • Automobile accidents
  • Suicide
  • Homicide
    • Judicial executions
    • Legal intervention
    • Lynching
  • Undetermined (or “Could not be Determined”)

Note: "Cause of death" is the specific injury or disease that leads to death.

There are basic, general “rules” for classifying manner of death:

  • Natural deaths are due solely or nearly totally to disease and/or the aging process
  • Accident applies when an injury or poisoning causes death and there is little or no evidence that the injury or poisoning occurred with intent to harm or cause death. In
  • Suicide results from an injury or poisoning as a result of an intentional, self-inflicted act committed to do self harm or cause the death of one’s self.
  • Homicide occurs when death results from a volitional act committed by another person to cause fear, harm, or death. Intent to cause death is a common element but is not required for classification as homicide. It is to be emphasized that the classification of Homicide for the purposes of death certification is a “neutral” term and neither indicates nor implies criminal intent, which remains a determination within the province of legal processes.
    • Judicial executions (e.g. capital punishment), also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime, usually following an authorised, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment.
    • Legal intervention refers to deaths due to injuries inflicted by police or other law enforcement agents, including military on duty, in the course of arresting or attempting to arrest lawbreakers, suppressing disturbances, maintaining order, and performing other legal actions.
    • Lynching is the killing (by hanging, burning, or torturing) of an individual or individuals, by a group of three or more persons operating outside the legal system in the belief that they have the right to serve justice or to reinforce a tradition or social custom. Motivated by anger, hatred, or outrage, mob members act spontaneously on the basis of presumed guilt, without the due process of law. Because law enforcement officials tacitly approved or could not prevent it, lynching could exist.
  • Undetermined or “could not be determined” is a classification used when the information pointing to one manner of death is no more compelling than one or more other competing manners of death in thorough consideration of all available information.

In general, when death involves a combination of natural processes and external factors such as injury or poisoning, preference is given to the non-natural manner of death.