The lack of an autopsy, plus that fact the county judge mad a decision about the cause of death without seeing the body, raises questions about how death is handled in Texas.
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About two dozen states including Texas, use a local coroner system under which someone is elected or appointed to verify that a deceased individual is, well, dead.
In Texas, the coroner's role falls to the 817 elected justices of the peace, The JPs marry couples, handle small claims disputes and come when called, usually by law enforcement, to verify death when someone doesn't die in a hospital or when a doctor cannot — or will not — sign a death certificate.
"I'm the coroner, and everything," explained David Beebe, one of the two justices of the peace in Presidio County who were called on Saturday to come to Cibolo Creek Ranch, 28 miles southwest of Marfa, after Scalia, a guest of the resort's owner, was discovered dead in his room.
But both Beebe and Presidio County's other JP, Juanita Bishop, were too far away, so the Presidio County Sheriff's Office contacted the county's chief executive, or county judge, Guevara.
What happened next speaks to the remoteness of Texas geography and the nation's haphazard system of managing death.
Thea Whalen, an attorney who trains JPs at the Texas Justice Training Center in Austin, said the state's size and population distribution is something many fail to grasp.
