Dr. Michael Baden has served as chief medical examiner of New York City and chairman of the forensic panel that reviewed the assassinations of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and he is currently serving as codirector of the blue-ribbon New York State Police Forensic Sciences Unit. Baden reviews his own education as a medical examiner and provides a brief history of the development of the profession. A review of his stint as New York City medical examiner focuses on the influence of politics on the medical examiner's work. The autopsies of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jennifer Levin, Elvis Presley, and Tennessee Williams are reviewed, as are the medical findings in the von Bulow case. Time of death is the focus in reviews of the medical examinations of John Belushi, Pinchos Jaroslawicz, and David Hendricks. Examinations in serial murders are analyzed for perpetrators Mary Beth Tinning, Joe Christopher, and Richard Kuklinski. Some diagnostic errors in medical examinations are reviewed in the cases of Leonard Barco and Calus von Bulow. A separate chapter covers the deaths at New York's Attica prison. Subject index.