Terence Keel — The Coroner's Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence - with Dr. Michele Goodwin

Each year, police officers kill over 1,000 people they've sworn to protect and serve. While some cases, like George Floyd's and Sandra Bland's, capture national attention, most victims remain nameless, their stories untold. The Coroner's Silence reveals a disturbing truth about these cases: coroners and other death investigators are often complicit in obscuring the violent circumstances of in-custody deaths.Through rigorous research--including critical records analysis, public health studies, and interviews with victims' families--this book unmasks the systemic failures within forensic medicine. Terence Keel shows how incomplete autopsy reports, mishandled medical documents, and strategically lost evidence effectively shield law enforcement from accountability.The Coroner's Silence uncovers how the current system of death investigation operates as a mechanism of institutional safeguarding. By highlighting the structural powerlessness of coroners and their disconnection from the communities most affected by police violence, Keel demonstrates how bureaucratic processes can render human suffering invisible.True accountability requires more than procedural reform. It demands a fundamental reimagining of how we investigate, document, and understand deaths at the hands of state institutions. The Coroner's Silence is a crucial intervention that challenges us to confront the deeply ingrained mechanisms that perpetuate systemic violence.Terence Keel is an award-winning scholar, the founding director of the BioCritical Studies Lab, and a professor of human biology, society, and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is author of Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science and co-editor of  Critical Approaches to Science and Religion. Keel has received fellowships from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.Keel is in conversation with Dr. Michele Goodwin, the Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and Faculty Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. She is a sought after thought leader and public voice on matters of constitutional law, healthcare, bioethics, and civil liberties with her research and scholarship referenced by courts and legislative bodies, and appearing in print, radio, and television news, including at The Atlantic, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Chicago Sun-Times, Vox, Politico, Salon.com, Forbes, The Washington Post, and Mother Jones and appearances on ABC News; CBS News, NBC News; MSNBC, NPR, PBS, and HBO’s Vice News among others. Outside of the classroom, Dr. Goodwin is the Executive Producer of Ms. Studios, host of the popular podcast: On The Issues With Michele Goodwin.