Section 23-4-4 - JurisdictionThe 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.