They only have to appear to be dead for the police chief to have authority to order an autopsy.
Yes, an autopsy can only be performed on an actual “human remains”. That’s why no autopsy was done. Harle wasn’t even there.
But the other statute (don’t have time to look it up right now; off to my son’s robotics meet) says that the Attorney General can do ANYTHING (exact word of the statute) he believes is necessary to protect a potential state witness. He can order fake autopsy results to be created even though Dr. Harle was not there and had no way to even be there at the time of the scheduled alleged autopsy, just like he can order an EMS document to say that Harle pronounced the death when she didn’t use any means to communicate anything.
841-14 only applies to the chief of police in the city and county of Honolulu. But it doesn’t matter because per 841-1, the “chief of police or his authorized subordinate of the counties of Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai, and the medical examiner of the city and county of Honolulu, shall, ex officio, be the coroner for his respective county.”
You are misreading the word “appearing”. It refers to the circumstances of death not to being dead. So if it appears that someone dead in one of the ways outlined in 841-3, then 841-14 applies.
That doesn't even make sense.
Moreover, it flies in the face of the clear reading of Haw. Rev. Stat. §841-14. §841-14 addresses "the remains of any human body."