republic-os/legislation/us/states/de/152/hb-134.md

type, title, description, jurisdiction, legislature, session, identifier, citation, classification, subjects, status, primary_sponsors, version_count, action_count, vote_count, first_action, last_action, source, source_identifier, source_url, source_hash, vintage, source_snapshot, retrieved_at, confidence, tags

type	title	description	jurisdiction	legislature	session	identifier	citation	classification	subjects	status	primary_sponsors	version_count	action_count	vote_count	first_action	last_action	source	source_identifier	source_url	source_hash	vintage	source_snapshot	retrieved_at	confidence	tags
Bill	AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 9, 10, 15, 16 AND 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE DIVISION OF FORENSIC SCIENCE AND THE MEDICAL EXAMINER.	This is a housekeeping bill to remove outdated references to the term “coroner” in the Delaware Code. Created in 1682, the Office of the Coroner was one of the earliest elective offices in Delaware. The primary responsibility of the coroner was to investigate all cases in which a person died while in prison, was killed, died an unnatural death, or the circumstances of the death were unknown. It was also the duty of the coroner to arrest a person believed to have committed murder or manslaughter and to perform the duties of the sheriff when the sheriff was unavailable. The Office of the Coroner was abolished in 1969 and the responsibility for determining the cause of death is now the responsibility of the Medical Examiner. Today, it is outside the Medical Examiner’s scope of employment to perform many of the job duties that coroners were historically expected to do, and this bill clarifies that Medical Examiners are only responsible for investigating causes of death throughout the State under the provisions of Chapter 47 of Title 29, relating to forensic science.	us/states/de	Delaware General Assembly	152	HB 134	Delaware HB 134 (152)	bill		enacted	Franklin D. Cooke John "Jack" Walsh Nicole Poore	1	7	2	2023-05-02	2023-07-25	openstates	ocd-bill/f1c328c0-59b0-4ef9-bfa3-322ae8cdbc08	https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=130275	3505d3a609b60adad8899aa30750e21eda5bf24d1560c0c4569ab85d6b1f32f8	2026-07-01	https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump	2026-07-06	reported	legislation bill us-de

Delaware HB 134 (152) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 9, 10, 15, 16 AND 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE DIVISION OF FORENSIC SCIENCE AND THE MEDICAL EXAMINER.

This is a housekeeping bill to remove outdated references to the term “coroner” in the Delaware Code. Created in 1682, the Office of the Coroner was one of the earliest elective offices in Delaware. The primary responsibility of the coroner was to investigate all cases in which a person died while in prison, was killed, died an unnatural death, or the circumstances of the death were unknown. It was also the duty of the coroner to arrest a person believed to have committed murder or manslaughter and to perform the duties of the sheriff when the sheriff was unavailable. The Office of the Coroner was abolished in 1969 and the responsibility for determining the cause of death is now the responsibility of the Medical Examiner. Today, it is outside the Medical Examiner’s scope of employment to perform many of the job duties that coroners were historically expected to do, and this bill clarifies that Medical Examiners are only responsible for investigating causes of death throughout the State under the provisions of Chapter 47 of Title 29, relating to forensic science.

Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. Bill Text (committee substitute) — source

Votes

• SM — 37–0 (pass) · lower
• 2/3 — 21–0 (pass) · upper

Sponsors

• Franklin D. Cooke — primary (person)
• John "Jack" Walsh — primary (person)
• Nicole Poore — primary (person)

Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

• 2023-05-02 Introduced and Assigned to Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee in House introduction, referral-committee
• 2023-05-09 Reported Out of Committee (Public Safety & Homeland Security) in House with 7 Favorable committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable
• 2023-05-11 Passed By House. Votes: 37 YES 4 ABSENT passage
• 2023-05-11 Assigned to Corrections & Public Safety Committee in Senate introduction, referral-committee
• 2023-06-14 Reported Out of Committee (Corrections & Public Safety) in Senate with 4 On Its Merits committee-passage
• 2023-06-30 Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES passage
• 2023-07-25 Signed by Governor executive-signature

Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot 2026-07-01; origin ocd-bill/f1c328c0-59b0-4ef9-bfa3-322ae8cdbc08. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).