Legislation Related to Child Maltreatment

NOTIFICATION OF CERTAIN DEATHS

(ARK. CODE ANN. 12-12-315)

 (a)(1) The county coroner and the chief law enforcement official of the county and municipality in which the death of a human being occurs shall be promptly notified by any physician, law enforcement officer, undertaker or embalmer, jailer or correction officer, or coroner, or by any other person present or with knowledge of the death, if:

 (A) The death appears to be caused by violence or appears to be the result of a homicide or a suicide or to be accidental;

 (B) The death appears to be the result of the presence of drugs or poisons in the body;

 (C) The death appears to be a result of a motor vehicle accident, or the body was found in or near a roadway or railroad;

 (D) The death appears to be a result of a motor vehicle accident and there is no obvious trauma to the body;

 (E) The death occurs while the person is in a state mental institution or hospital and there is no previous medical history to explain the death, or while the person is in police custody, a jail, or penal institution;

 (F) The death appears to be the result of a fire or explosion;

 (G) The death of a minor child appears to indicate child abuse prior to death;

 (H) Human skeletal remains are recovered or an unidentified deceased person is discovered;

 (I) Postmortem decomposition exists to the extent that an external examination of the corpse cannot rule out injury, or where the circumstances of death cannot rule out the commission of a crime;

 (J) The death appears to be the result of drowning;

 (K) The death is of an infant or minor child in cases where there is no previous medical history to explain the death;

 (L) The manner of death appears to be other than natural;

 (M) The death is sudden and unexplained;

 (N) The death occurs at a work site;

 (O) The death is due to a criminal abortion;

 (P) The death is of a person where a physician was not in attendance within thirty-six (36) hours preceding death, or, in pre-diagnosed terminal or bedfast cases, within thirty (30) days;

 (Q) A person is admitted to a hospital emergency room unconscious and is unresponsive, with cardiopulmonary resuscitative measures being performed, and dies within twenty-four (24) hours of admission  without regaining consciousness or responsiveness, unless a physician was in attendance within thirty-six (36) hours preceding presentation to the hospital, or, in cases in which the decedent had a  pre-diagnosed terminal or bedfast condition, unless a physician was in attendance within thirty (30) days preceding presentation to the hospital; or

 (R) The death occurs in the home.

 (2) Nothing in this section shall be construed to require an investigation, autopsy, or inquest in any case where death occurred without medical attendance solely because the deceased was under treatment by prayer or spiritual means in accordance with the tenets and practices of a well-recognized church or religious denomination. 

(a)     A violation of the provisions of this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

Return to Legislation

Center for Children at Risk

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Department of Pediatrics

Arkansas Children's Hospital

800 Marshall St.

Little Rock, AR  72202

(501) 364-1013