Not only may you not enter the state without certification: you are, in the eyes of the state, not dead until you are certified dead; and you can be certified dead only by an officer who himself (herself) holds state certification. The state pursues the certification of death with extraordinary thoroughness–witness the dispatch of a host of forensic scientists and bureaucrats to scrutinize and photograph and prod and poke the mountain of human corpses left behind by the great tsunami of December 2004 in order to establish their individual identities. No expense is spared to ensure that the census of subjects shall be complete and accurate. Whether the citizen lives or dies is not a concern of the state. What matters to the state and its records is whether the citizen is alive or dead. J.M. Coetzee
About This Quote

In this quote, it explains how the state of California gets a death certificate from a coroner. The state of California is especially careful to get a death certificate from the right person. This is because if someone who is not dead is living in a house, then that person can claim to be a rightful owner of that house.

Source: Diary Of A Bad Year

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