I live in Texas. some years ago an elderly great aunt of mine (wheelchair bound) burned to death in her home out in a rural area. everyone was relatively certain that a gas space heater had caught the curtains afire and that is what started the blaze. She was burned to virtually nothing, yet the state ordered an autopsy of her remains to be certain that no foul play had been committed prior to the fire. I am pretty sure it is state law here that anyone who dies outside a hospital or not under the care of a physician has to get an autopsy?
Nope. Unless the circumstances are suspicious (such as in a fire) there generally is never an autopsy. In rural counties without a medical examiner, when a death occurs outside of a hospital, the local Justice of the Peace is called to pronounce the death and cause of death. Most JPs have no medical training.
In the case of the death of a Supreme Court Justice, I think an autopsy would have been warranted regardless of the circumstances, but the fact that no autopsy was performed in not surprising or unusual.
But everyone was “relatively certain” that is how your aunt passed; they still did an autopsy. Surely being “relatively certain” how a lead Supreme Court Justice passes away at a crucial time in the court is good enough for all. The good Justice Scalia always adjudicated cases on the basic of “relatively certain.”
So one conservative on the court changes his mind at the last minute about an abjectly unconstitutional grab of federal power (Obamacare) and another dies of “peaceful repose” with a pillow on his face at a Democrat ranch of 30,000 acres in remotest Texas where his cause of death is pronounced over the phone. Why all these conspiracy theories??