Constructing Death in Medical Examiner Reports

Project Members: Dr. Terrence Keel, Armond Lee

The medical examination of George Floyd is a recent episode in a long history of American biomedical science constructing death in ways that absolves state accountability and suppresses knowledge about the biological effects of institutional racism.

This project asks: How does the pretense of objective biomedical knowledge erase the conflict of interest between state-sanctioned violence protected by legal immunity and a state sanctioned medical body charged with the task of disclosing cause of death in state custody? LCHP will support this team in obtaining coroner’s reports and proof of death letters to examine historical examples that address this question. Click here to learn more about this project and the project members.