The Brandenburg police are investigating the death of Hertha President Kay Bernstein. “This is the standard after an unexplained death,” says Alexandra Braun, a specialist in criminal law, to the star. “At least in the death of someone who was considered healthy.” Things are different for a 90-year-old who dies in her sleep.
This is regulated in Section 159 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: “If there are indications that someone died of an unnatural death, or if the body of an unknown person is found, the police and municipal authorities are obliged to report the matter immediately to the public prosecutor’s office or the district court .”
In the vast majority of cases, relatives or carers discover someone who has died at home. If the doctor who is called enters “unexplained cause of death” on the death certificate or if there are signs of a homicide, the police must investigate.
The body is then taken to forensic medicine, examined and autopsied. “If the forensic experts then find a previously unknown illness of the deceased person – such as a heart defect or an aneurysm – as the cause of death, the investigation ends,” says lawyer Braun.
This could also happen in the case of the Hertha president. “There are currently no indications of suicide or external influence,” said a spokeswoman for the Brandenburg police to the “Tagesspiegel”.
Despite postmortem examinations and forensic medicine, there are serious reports that every second murder in Germany remains undetected. Lawyer Braun thinks this is realistic: “The post-mortem examinations are sometimes terrible,” says Braun. Because they are often done by the medical on-call service. “It may be that a specialist in naturopathy or a specialist in orthopedics does a post-mortem examination, even though they last did it during their studies,” says Braun.
And something else plays a role in practice: the doctor who confirms the death of someone who has died at home contacts the family doctor. If there is an illness in his medical file that could have led to death, no further investigation is often carried out. Then the death certificate states a natural cause of death.
It is still unclear when the results of the forensic medical examination in the Bernstein case will be available and whether the investigation will then end.
Sources: Lawyer Alexandra Braun, “Tagesspiegel”, information sheet “Corpse inspections in the medical on-call service in Hesse”, DPA.
