Not all pathologists are trained to do autopsies:
Autopsies in some rural places often are performed by doctors not fully trained to look for evidence of a crime. In urban areas, they are done by forensic pathologists, who are specially trained and certified as medical investigators.
“If you had a blockage in your arteries going to your heart, about to kill you, would you be comfortable going to a foot doctor?” said attorney John Smietanka, who worked to free the Newaygo County man, Larry Souter, from prison last year.
