변사자의 혈액채취와 증거물 유효성 = A Study on the Collection of Unnatural Death's Blood and Evidence Validity

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to confirm the value of blood collected as proof and review the relationship between the blood collecting by non-medical personnel and the evidence collected through the blood sampler investigation. METHOD Among the 11,176 incident cases put into the SCAS during the year 2017, 455 cases (2.5%) were identified to be from unnatural death in the two selected cities and two provinces for the year 2017. RESULT The number of the unnatural death was the highest in A area (4,578 cases) while the number of blood collection was the highest in B area (172 cases). Among the 455 cases of blood collection, 330 cases (72%) were collected by postmortem doctor, and 111 cases (25%) were collected by the police and the others were 14 cases(3%). In particular, in the D region, only 19 out of 1,875 cases (1.0%) accompanied blood collection, showing the lowest rate among the study sample areas. This is because there was no recognition that there is a need to collect blood at the scene of a criminal case or people avoided blood collection. Therefore there is a possibility that notwithstanding a need to collect blood in the field, it may be ignored. Moreover, in the case of unnatural death, blood can be an important clue, and the evidence linkage should be protected by recording the detail of collected blood. CONCLUSION since postmortem doctor has expert knowledge and skills on medical practice and performs on-site examination and autopsy at the request of the police, it is not legally problematic to conduct blood collection from unnatural death. However, although the coroner or scientific investigator performs the identification and analysis but does not have the qualification or authority to collect blood. Therefore, in order to increase the linkage of evidence for blood collection, it is necessary to increase the number of postmortem doctor so that blood collection can be done by them. However, since postmortem doctor may not be able to attend, it is necessary to provide legal support for the blood sampling by the coroner or scientific investigator.