Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-312

Abuse of corpse

Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case State of Tennessee v. David Hooper Climer, Jr. (2013)

Most recently applied in State of Tennessee v. David Hooper Climer, Jr. (April 2013)

Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 1; 2006, ch. 896, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

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.

(1) A person commits an offense who, without legal privilege, knowingly: Physically mistreats a corpse in a manner offensive to the sensibilities of an ordinary person;

(2) Disinters a corpse that has been buried or otherwise interred; or

(3) Disposes of a corpse in a manner known to be in violation of law.

(4) A person commits an offense who, without legal authority or privilege, knowingly offers to sell, sells, offers to purchase or purchases previously buried human skeletal remains. Any remains seized in violation of this subsection (b) shall be confiscated and subject to disposition as provided for in §§ 11-6-104 and 11-6-119.

(5) A violation of this section is a Class E felony.

Current official text: Tennessee Code (LexisNexis). Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Tennessee statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.