Sec. 1. 22 MRSA §2842, sub-§2-A is enacted to read:

2-A.__Medical certification.__Notwithstanding subsection 2, with respect to a person who dies within the State naturally and for whom the physician was the attending physician the medical certification of the cause of death may be completed and signed by a physician authorized to practice at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Togus or at another federal medical facility within the State or by a physician licensed to practice in New Hampshire, Vermont or Massachusetts, who, at the request of the Chief Medical Examiner, is willing to do so.

Sec. 2. 22 MRSA §3025, sub-§1, as amended by PL 2001, c. 222, §4 and c. 354, §3, is further amended to read:

1. Circumstances of death that must be reported. A medical examiner case exists may exist and must be reported as provided in section 3026 when remains are found which that may be human and raise suspicion that death has occurred under any of the following circumstances:

A. Death is suspected of having been caused by any type of physical injury, including poisoning, regardless of whether the suspected manner of death is homicide, suicide or accident;.__This circumstance must be reported irrespective of whether the deceased had been attended by a physician, was a patient in a hospital, survived for a considerable time following the physical injury or died from terminal natural causes consequent to and following the physical injury;

B. Suddenly when the person is in apparent good health and has no specific natural disease sufficient to explain death;

C. During diagnostic or therapeutic procedures under circumstances indicating gross negligence or when clearly due to trauma or poisoning unrelated to the ordinary risks of those procedures;

D. Death when the person is in custody pursuant to an arrest, confined in a state correctional facility, county institution, facility or local lockup, unless clearly certifiable by an attending physician as due to specific natural causes;

E. Death while the person is a patient or resident of a facility of the Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services or residential care facility maintained or licensed by the Department of Human Services, unless clearly