California Health and Safety Code Section 7052.a

CA Health & Safety Code § 7052.a (2017)  

(a) Every person who willfully mutilates, disinters, removes from the place of interment, or commits an act of sexual penetration on, or has sexual contact with, any remains known to be human, without authority of law, is guilty of a felony. This section does not apply to any person who, under authority of law, removes the remains for reinterment, or performs a cremation or hydrolysis.

(b) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) “Sexual penetration” means the unlawful penetration of the vagina or anus, however slight, by any part of a person’s body or other object, or any act of sexual contact between the sex organs of a person and the mouth or anus of a dead body, or any oral copulation of a dead human body for the purpose of sexual arousal, gratification, or abuse.

(2) “Sexual contact” means any willful touching by a person of an intimate part of a dead human body for the purpose of sexual arousal, gratification, or abuse.

(c) This section shall become operative on July 1, 2020.

(Repealed (in Sec. 52) and added by Stats. 2017, Ch. 846, Sec. 53. (AB 967) Effective January 1, 2018. Section operative July 1, 2020, by its own provisions.)

Last modified: October 25, 2018