Bill would make sex with corpse a crime

If this thing becomes law, esp. in the extremism state of Illinois, if you see a DEAD body DO NOT MOVE it or any part of it lest you be tagged a sex offender, likely for life! I cannot see any good reason to combine everything this bill covers into one bill, except to create more sex offenders for the registry.

2-17-2012 Illinois:

Also targets moving bodies in drug overdoses

At the urging of Madison County officials, state Rep. Dan Beiser has drafted a bill dealing with the treatment of dead bodies - including a provision that would make it a crime to have sex with them.

House Bill 5122 would create the offense of abuse of a corpse in Illinois.

"The State's Attorney's Office approached me with three items they thought were important for legislation, and this was one of them," said Beiser, D-Alton.

Beiser said the Jan. 26 deadline to have topics for legislation submitted to the Illinois General Assembly's Reference Bureau was approaching fast, so he filed a draft bill that had been proposed to him by State's Attorney Tom Gibbons.

"We went ahead and did that, and we asked the legislative research unit to delve into the state statutes to see if anything has been done in the past regarding this topic," Beiser said. "If so, we'll compare what's on the books, if anything, with our bill strengthening it."

HB 5122 "provides that a person commits the offense if he or she intentionally: (1) engages in sexual conduct with a corpse or involving a corpse; or (2) removes or carries away a corpse and is not authorized by law to do so."

The bill establishes penalties, including a prison sentence of up to seven years for the crime. It also provides exemptions from violations for removing or carrying away a corpse.

Beiser filed the bill Feb. 8, when it had its first reading in the Illinois House and was referred to the Rules Committee.

The lawmaker said Madison County Coroner Steve Nonn had raised the issue about a person moving a corpse to avoid prosecution.

"This bill, if need be, would address all these situations," Beiser said. "There is some question if there is anything on the books already. We wanted to get something in the works in case we did have to deal with it legislatively."

Gibbons said the proposed new legislation came about as a result of a recent added emphasis on treating each drug overdose death scene as a crime scene.

He said there have been cases in which bodies were taken from the crime scene and dumped to divert attention from the spot where the person died from the overdose.

Some of those cases would not fit well under the statute that makes it an offense to conceal a homicidal death, he said.

Therefore, he and his staff did some research and came up with the proposed legislation of making it illegal to move human remains, such as are found at crime scenes.

"For example, we have had overdose death cases in which the bodies have been moved, and it destroyed our ability to figure out what happened," Gibbons said.

One of the responsibilities of law enforcement, he noted, aside from prosecuting criminals, is to find out what happened.

"If someone chooses to move the remains, we might never get to the truth," he said, adding that there is a wealth of information to be had by finding the body as it was when death occurred.

"Add to that, the concept of respect for the remains of the dead," Gibbons said.

Along the same lines as respecting human remains, he said lawyers for the State's Attorney's Office discovered that it was not illegal to have sexual intercourse with a corpse.

That prompted Gibbons to have a provision added that would make the activity illegal. He said it would seem appropriate to almost anyone that sex with a corpse should be illegal.

"Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all people would not stoop to this type of activity," Beiser said regarding the issue of sex with a corpse. "Let's not lose focus. One aspect of it needs to be done, and the other aspect is what the county coroner brings up. If either of those has not been dealt with properly in the statute, we want to make sure it's covered." ..Source.. by SANFORD J. SCHMIDT and STEVE WHITWORTH