Every person who wilfully and maliciously removes and keeps possession of and appropriates for his own use articles of value from a dead human body, the theft of which articles would be petty theft is guilty of a misdemeanor, or if the theft of the articles would be grand theft, a felony. This section shall not apply to articles removed at the request or direction of one of the persons enumerated in section 7111 of the Health and Safety Code.
Cal. Penal Code § 642
Of Other and Miscellaneous Offenses
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case 54 Cal. 3d 868 - Christensen v. Superior Court (1991)
Most recently applied in 19 Cal. App. 4th 1692 - People v. Ibrahim (November 1993)
Added by Stats. 1939, Ch. 691.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.