Office Overview

Our office was originally started with the County in 1850 as a Coroner system, and in 1990 it was converted to a Medical Examiner's system.  The major difference between the two systems is that a Medical Examiner must be a forensic pathologist.  While we work with all of the law enforcement agencies in the county (San Diego Sheriff's Office, San Diego Police Department, etc.) and the District Attorney’s Office, we are completely separate from them.  We are currently housed in our sole facility in the Kearny Mesa area of San Diego.  The previous building was opened in 1963 and was expanded several times before demolition early in 2010 for a large parking structure as part of the larger project of redesigning the entire County Operations Center.  We moved into our brand new facility on the COC in December of 2009, more than tripling our space and our capacity for decades for future growth.