Lawmakers pass ‘dead body bill’ dealing with handling of corpses

Funeral director Tom Cheeseman retrieves a body on a house call, April 3, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The Senate followed the House’s lead, passing legislation governing stewardship over corpses and cadavers, and cracking down on evidence tampering.

Ahead of an unanimous vote for the House version of her bill, Sen. Linda Stewart said the “dead body bill” (HB 1653, SB 768) would “require immediate reporting of a dead body under specific circumstances in the bill.”

People aware of the dead body are compelled to report the death and circumstances thereof to either the district medical examiner or to a law enforcement agency with jurisdiction where the death took place.

The legislation also enhances penalties for those who compromise the corpse in question to conceal material evidence that may help establish culpability in the case of suspected murder.

“The failure to report a body or tampering with the body with the intent of altering evidence will result in a new heightened penalty from first degree misdemeanor to a third degree felony,” added the Senator from Orange County, who noted that the actually-very-live legislation was brought to her by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

Tampering for the purposes of this bill would include touching, removing or disturbing the body or any article proximate to it in an attempt to cover up the crime.

The Criminal Justice Impact Conference analyzed the bill, and found that it may lead to more people going to prison for offenses like this.