THE CORNER ISSUE

Next year, Cape Girardeau County will become a first-class county. Among the changes in county government that come with the new designation is replacement of the county coroner with a medical examiner.

But county officials don't see the need for a medical examiner, which would cost considerably more than the expense of an elected coroner. Some estimates put the annual expense of a medical examiner as high as $150,000 annually. Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, is sponsoring a bill that would allow the county the option of retaining the coroner's post. The bill passed in the Senate and awaits House action.

Kinder and county officials say hiring a full-time medical examiner would put too great a financial burden on the county without offering any additional services. Currently, Coroner John Carpenter gets a base salary of $8,000. When a medical examiner -- a trained pathologist -- is needed to perform autopsies, Carpenter orders them at a cost of about $2,000 each. He typically orders 15 to 20 autopsies each year.

Autopsies are mandatory in violent deaths, and state law requires investigations of all deaths involving children 18 years old and younger with no known critical health problem.

Carpenter gets high marks from county commissioners and from pathologists in the state who perform autopsies for him. He is thorough in his gathering of information about a death. Those details help the medical examiner pinpoint the cause of death. But the coroner is an elected post, and just because Carpenter does a good job doesn't guarantee his successors always will.

A coroner works well in Cape Girardeau County because there aren't a lot of homicide or suspicious-death cases. A medical examiner on retainer would earn the same salary no matter how often his services were needed. But a medical examiner also might be able to recoup some of the higher costs by performing autopsies for surrounding counties in Southeast Missouri.

When the U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis installed federal prosecutors in Cape Girardeau, there were those who said the caseload in this part of the state didn't justify the expense. Soon, however, the cases grew as law enforcement in the area took advantage of the new office and began to build federal criminal and civil cases. Now the U.S. attorneys in Cape Girardeau have one of the highest caseloads in the state. The same might hold true for a medical examiner's office here.

Still, the cost advantage in keeping a county coroner is significant. That advantage would weigh more prominently if, instead of requiring medical examiners in first-class counties, the state mandated training for coroners.

If all county coroners could get the kind of training in death-scene investigations that pathologists need to better do their jobs, there is less reason to require first-class counties to hire full-time medical examiners.

The Missouri Coroners and Medical Examiners Association is working on legislation that would develop a system of training, testing and certifying county coroners.

If Cape Girardeau County is granted the exemption it seeks, then the county also ought to take steps to increase the level of training for its coroner.