MtheGM -

Your statement in the first post was:

Why, or how, is it the business of the coroner, rather than the jury, to decide what a verdict can be?

The LAW governing the purpose and conduct of a coroner in a coroners inquest appears to rather specifically state what the jury is to determine, and rather specifically states what it may not determine.

It would appear that your objection is that the law is wrong, and that the coroners inquest should delve into matters reserved for other kinds of proceedings.

In the US, the coroner makes similar decisions, but usually without a jury. The identity of the deceased is determined, when possible. The immediate circumstances of the death, and cause of death are determined when possible.

Whether a crime was committed is a matter commonly decided by a grand jury, or by an officer of a different court system (e.g. an attorney general), who makes the decision whether to request/demand a criminal court trial.

It is only in the criminal court here that a jury is permitted (and required) to be convinced that a crime has occured and that someone is reasonably likely to have committed a crime.

Your quibbling over failure of the coroners inquiry to permit the jury from making decisions which they are prohibited by law from making seems akin to asking why a lynch mob isn't intitled to take action without recourse to the law.

If you believe that there was a crime, your question should be why the authorities properly responsible for proceeding in the appropriate other court(s) failed to proceed after the coroners inquest did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Perhaps you, or someone else more interested in the operations of UK law, should look at who was supposed to have the authority and obligation to have taken a next step (?), rather than protesting that the coroner did as it appears (s)he(?) was supposed to do.

I have little interest or inclination to engage in a discussion of whether your law is honest, efficient, fair, just, or effective. We have enough questions in those matters with our own legal systems in the US.

John