ABMDI Registry common mistakes
ABMDI Registry · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Declining or accepting a case based on where the body is lying without running the statutory jurisdiction test - place of injury, place of pronouncement, county of residence, and the decedent's custody or ward status.
Candidates memorize 'the medicolegal office investigates deaths in its county' and then treat the scene address as decisive. In reality a decedent may be transported across a boundary, or the fatal injury may have occurred in another jurisdiction, so the address on the run sheet is not the legal answer.
What to do instead
Before responding, state on the record the four facts (where injured, where found, where pronounced, county of residence/custody status). If two offices could claim the case, accept the body, notify the other office, and document the contact name, agency, and time of notification.
Closing out the initial call by telephone without a scene response because the reporting party used a natural-death phrase such as 'hospice,' 'expected,' or 'her doctor will sign.'
Hospice and facility staff speak with authority, the family is often insistent, and there is schedule pressure. Candidates accept the caller's characterization instead of testing it against the reportable-death criteria they were taught.
What to do instead
Ask the hospice questions every time: enrolled in hospice, signed DNR or advance directive physically present, attending physician actually willing to sign the certificate, and no trauma, overdose, or unexpected circumstances. Document each answer verbatim and the name and role of the person who gave it.
Sealing a blood-soaked or wet item in a plastic bag and handing it to a police officer on scene with no written chain-of-custody entry.
The instinct is to collect it fast while the item is in front of you, and the officer is standing there with a hand out. Transfer documentation feels like paperwork to be completed later, and later never comes.
What to do instead
Air-dry biological and damp items and package them in paper, never plastic. Complete the custody form - item description, collector, date and time, receiving person - before the item leaves your hands, and obtain a signature at every subsequent transfer.
Writing or testifying that the decedent died 'at approximately 0200' because the body was fully rigid and livor was fixed and non-blanching.
Rigor and livor staging is the most memorizable content in the curriculum, so candidates convert a textbook table into a point estimate and present it as a finding rather than an inference.
What to do instead
Report the observations separately and descriptively ('rigor present in jaw, neck, and upper extremities; livor fixed with no blanching over dependent areas'), then give a range rather than a time, and list the modifiers that limit it - ambient temperature, body habitus, clothing, drugs, position.
Recording 'identified by family' or 'identified by wallet' as the identification method in the report and moving on.
Visual recognition feels conclusive and it is the fastest line to write. The corroborating identifiers that would make the identification defensible are never collected, so the record cannot later support or correct itself.
What to do instead
Name the method and its class: scientific (fingerprint, dental comparison, DNA) versus presumptive (visual recognition, personal effects, tattoos, scars, medical devices). For a presumptive identification, list at least two corroborating identifiers and mark the identification as presumptive pending confirmation.
Delivering the death notification to whoever answers the phone number listed for the decedent, based on that person's own description of the relationship.
Speed and empathy push the investigator to call the first number available, and the priority order for next of kin, plus the possibility that the contact is estranged, a minor, or a suspect, is not considered before the words are out.
What to do instead
Establish the relationship before any disclosure. Follow the office's next-of-kin priority order (spouse, adult child, parent, sibling), confirm identity with date of birth or address, and stop and escalate if the contact is a minor, a suspect, or not a legal next of kin. Document who was notified, by whom, when, and the substance of what was said.
Entering 'manner: undetermined' or 'manner: natural' on a case where the cause is clear but the circumstances are not, without stating what is missing.
Undetermined feels like the safe neutral answer, and natural feels like the default for an elderly decedent. Candidates do not separate what must be established for each manner, so the classification becomes a way to close the file rather than a conclusion.
What to do instead
State cause and manner as separate findings. For undetermined, write the specific information that would change the classification and what was done to obtain it. For natural, cite the medical history and affirmatively document the absence of injury, toxicology, or third-party involvement.
Working a suspected overdose, an in-custody death, or a decedent under 18 as a routine scene call with no additional agency notifications.
These cases present like ordinary scene calls and nothing on the surface announces the special-circumstance protocol. The trigger list is not recalled under time pressure, so the notification that would have been mandatory is simply never made.
What to do instead
Run the mandatory-notification checklist on every case regardless of appearance: pediatric, elder or dependent adult, in-custody, workplace, contagious disease, suspected SIDS, and suspected overdose. Document each notification made, the agency and person reached, and the time.
Writing a narrative built on conclusions - 'the decedent appeared to have been dead several hours,' 'no foul play suspected' - rather than the observations that support them.
Report-writing habits carried over from prior employment, dictation, and the wish to be helpful to the reader all favor short conclusory sentences. They read as professional and they are fast.
What to do instead
Write observation-first and keep opinions inside the role. Describe what was seen, heard, and measured; quote witnesses verbatim in quotation marks; time-stamp each entry; and state negative findings explicitly ('no injuries observed on the exposed skin') instead of conclusions about them.
Releasing cause of death, scene photographs, or report contents to a family member, a reporter, or an officer from another agency who asks directly during the investigation.
Professional courtesy, community relationships, and a request that sounds reasonable from someone who sounds entitled to the information. The investigator answers as a favor without checking authority, and the disclosure cannot be recalled.
What to do instead
Route every non-routine release through office policy: verify statutory authority or a court order before release, refer all media contacts to the public information officer, and record the request, the decision, and the specific authority relied on.