U.S. State Laws on the Determination of Death by Neurologic Criteria

Abstract

The declaration of death of an individual has significant importance for various reasons, including for both law and medicine. In the vast majority of cases, the determination of death is based on the cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions. In less than 2% of cases, however, death is determined based on neurologic criteria, sometimes referred to as "brain death." The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA), promulgated in the early 1980s, has had a significant role in standardizing the legislative criteria for determining death in the United States, although there remains variation between states in the established laws in this area. In this chapter, we provide an overview of state laws in the United States concerning the determination 1 of death and explore some legal controversies that have arisen since the adoption of the UDDA. We begin with a brief history of the inclusion of neurologic criteria in law for the determination of death, then proceed to a discussion of some of the variations of state and international laws. We conclude by examining selected U.S. cases that have centered on ambiguity concerning determination of death based on neurologic criteria.