Necrophilia is sexual assault. The intent is the same on the part of the perpetrator whether the victim is alive or dead. Non-consensual sex.

A dead person has no ability to consent, so you can’t really call it non-consensual, and in fact the “victim” hardly fits the definition of the word victim: “a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.”

You can’t harm a non living person. I’m certainly not saying it’s OK to do such things, but “rape” is defined as against someone’s will, which in this case is not possible. They have no will.

Also this is not the case where he didn’t have the “balls” to go after a living person. That’s an awful lot of work to go through for some tail. This guy is obviously into gothic type stuff. That ugly died black hair is part of that whole goth/emo look. Goths are often obsessed with the dead and the macabre. People with sexual fetishes are very specific. He was interested in this activity because she was dead.

So people like this don’t move on to other crimes, just as child molesters are not interested in adults.

So I’m not saying this is OK, but I think it gets into a legal gray area that we have to watch out for. LIke when someone is charged with attempted rape when the “victim” doesn’t even exist, as in the case of police sting operations looking for online sexual predators. Yes, these people are dangerous and creepy, but you can’t charge someone with a crime against a person who doesn’t exist! You have to come up with a different charge, or make up new laws.

This reason this concerns me is that left unchecked people will be charged with all kinds of crimes that aren’t even possible! Police love to try and charge people with stuff, even if the person is innocent as a way to clean up their blotter. I think to charge someone with an attempted crime you really have to show that an attempt was made, or was even possible.

Unfortunately, our society has become very dysfunctional, especially where sex and relationships are concerned. The obsession with, and availability of porn has turned sex into something that doesn’t always require a second “person” as women are now nothing but objects.

This guy has a serious problem and needs help. Locking him up on a trumped up charge wont help anyone in the long run.

So the families of dead victims get more protection/recourse than those of live ones. Yeah, that makes total sense.

It actually does. A live person can fight for their own justice. A dead person has only family/friends to fight for them.

If the law didn’t think the dead deserved respect, there wouldn’t be ANY laws against desecration, necrophilia or any other offense committed against them.

If someone kills a person and then has sexual intercourse with them… what are they charged with (other than murder)? If necrophilia isn’t illegal.. mitigating/aggravating circumstance go out the window. If you charge them with rape/sexual assault – you’re setting a precedent that it is illegal to have sex with a dead person in the same manner it would be illegal to have sex with a live person. If you say that it doesn’t matter because they already face the murder charge – I can’t agree. It’s the mitigating/aggravating circumstances that can make the difference between life and death in sentencing (as another story here is attempting to prove now)

Necrophilia is sexual assault. The intent is the same on the part of the perpetrator whether the victim is alive or dead. Non-consensual sex.

In this case, the intent to commit sexual assault was there – the “balls” to go after a live victim were not.

I hope that isn’t confusing and please Athena… go easy on me. lol. I try hard not to spar with you – especially on legal issues!

Legally, the term “person” is about as ambiguous as you get. A corporation is defined as a “person”, for example. I’m used to statutes that specifically define the general nouns used, but can’t find one for the sexual assault statute. If there is no definition, I suppose they can do what they want with the term. That offends my sensibilities, though.

She’s a Vulcan, damn it!

LOL – brb got to read the Morb’s link……….

Now how she remains, unemotional about all of this stuff – well, I’m not gonna touch that one…………………… Just kiddin’

She’s a Vulcan, damn it!

But that’s almost beside the point. The article only says, “When officers investigated, they found Laura Tennessen’s grave had been tampered with, the top of the vault that held the coffin being visible.” It doesn’t actually say if these boys successfully accessed the grave and had sex with it, so I assumed they hadn’t. If that’s true, and they didn’t actually access the corpse, they shouldn’t be charged with sexual assault.

I am not a lawyer or judge, even though, like other people, I like to play one on this blog. So for anyone who wants to read how they came to this decision (over a law that already existed) read this:

http://www.wislawjournal.com/article.cfm/2008/07/14/Necrophilia-is-against-the-law-Statute-is-not-limited-to-rapemurder

It goes into detail on why these three morons were charged correctly the first time, why it was appealed and why the State Supreme Court reversed it, re-instating the original charges.

And that’s just the thing – I can’t think of a single precedent that establishes the deceased as a “person”, much like the unborn aren’t legally considered a “person”. If that was the case, we wouldn’t be able to keep bodies in museums without prior consent, or use corpses for medical purposes without prior consent under any circumstance. Classifying a corpse as a person has some pretty broad implications that it doesn’t seem as though they’ve considered.

But that’s almost beside the point. The article only says, “When officers investigated, they found Laura Tennessen’s grave had been tampered with, the top of the vault that held the coffin being visible.” It doesn’t actually say if these boys successfully accessed the grave and had sex with it, so I assumed they hadn’t. If that’s true, and they didn’t actually access the corpse, they shouldn’t be charged with sexual assault.

The fact that this girl was alive or dead did not matter in regards to the laws already on Wisconsin’s books, the fact that she did not give consent is. See, loopholes work both ways.

Very, very good point Morbid.

The audience may be interested to know that the things that cause you folks to want to ring my neck also frustrate the bejeesus out of my “real life” peeps, so, this isn’t a new thing for me. To be honest, I don’t really understand some people’s insistance on thinking emotionally any more than they understand my insistance on thinking unemotionally…But I don’t hold it against you, so try not to hold it against me, huh?

Its a deal. And, like I’ve said before, I respect your opinion and knowledge, I just don’t always agree. It’s nothing about your person, its nothing more than you see things one way and I see them another. Our past experiences skew our perceptions and since our pasts were different, we have different perceptions. Its all good, on my part anyway.

And I do have to say, a human body is not the same to me as some other inanimate object, like a door knob. It was, at one point, a human being, and I think that should be taken into consideration. I also think that, to a certain extent, emotions do need to play some sort of part in our legal justice system. S&M/bondage, for example, who does that hurt? No one, since you have two willing participants. But what these guys were about to do would have caused great pain to a family that is already suffering. I think that should be taken into consideration, at least. And Athena, you are most certainly not public enemy number 1 in my book, it wouldn’t be the same around here without you

I have to go with solange on this one and the inanimate object thing. In my death, I want to be viewed as a person, who has passed. I don’t want to be a person one day and the next be viewed with as much empathy as say, a door knob. It get the literal definition. I do. But anything that WAS living has to rate higher than anything that NEVER had life in it. Just sayin’…………………………

Well, that right there is the crux of the argument; the point that I recognize I have to be willing to agree to disagree. It’s not that I can’t sympathize…I mean, I can totally understand how necrophilia would fuck with the family of the deceased. But, from my (legal) perspective, we don’t have any criminal laws that protect the dead in any other circumstance, nor do we have any laws meant to protect or serve as vengence for the family of the victim (except in civil court). So, to me, this is establishing a whole new class of criminal charge (as there’s no legal precedent, that I can think of) because necrophilia is super fuckin’ icky.

That just doesn’t jive with me.

And Athena, you are most certainly not public enemy number 1 in my book, it wouldn’t be the same around here without you.

It sure wouldn’t! You wouldn’t get to play Catholic School teacher any more – always smacking my knuckles with a ruler!