The US Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of The National Academies to conduct a workshop that would examine the interface of the medicolegal death investigation system and the criminal justice system. NIJ was particularly interested in a workshop in which speakers would highlight not only the status and needs of the medicolegal death investigation system as currently administered by medical examiners and coroners but also its potential to meet emerging issues facing contemporary society in America. Additionally, the workshop was to highlight priority areas for a potential IOM study on this topic. To achieve those goals, IOM constituted the Committee for the Workshop on the Medicolegal Death Investigation System, which developed a workshop that focused on the role of the medical examiner and coroner death investigation system and its promise for improving both the criminal justice system and the public health and health care systems, and their ability to respond to terrorist threats and events. Six panels were formed to highlight different aspects of the medicolegal death investigation system, including ways to improve it and expand it beyond its traditional response and meet growing demands and challenges. This report summarizes the Workshop presentations and discussions that followed them.

For only the second time in American history, the president has been impeached by the House of Representatives and is facing trial by the United States Senate. At such a critical point in our history as a nation, the question is "What comes next?" Most Americans have only a vague notion of the history surrounding the first presidential impeachment trial. So, where do we go for answers? Here in Grand Inquests, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist provides dramatic accounts of two historic impeachment trials in the American past. With a keen sense of history and narrative ability, he recounts the 1805 trial of Justice Samuel Chase of the United States Supreme Court and the 1868 trial of President Andrew Johnson, which set the precedent by which our current president will be judged. The outcomes of these cases have remained extraordinarily important to the American system of government because they strengthened the constitutionally directed separation of powers. And though both men were acquitted, Chief Justice Rehnquist shows how a conviction in either case would also have deeply affected our present interpretation of the Constitution -- and, more likely, changed the course of history.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)