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Does Wisconsin prohibit necrophilia?

By: dmc-admin//September 27, 2006//

Does Wisconsin prohibit necrophilia?

By: dmc-admin//September 27, 2006//

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Does Wisconsin law prohibit necrophilia?

This question arises following a Grant County Circuit Court judge’s ruling in a case involving three 20-year-olds who allegedly tried to dig up a dead body for sexual purposes.

Subsection (7) of Wis. Stats. sec. 940.225 — Wisconsin’s sexual assault statute — provides as follows: “This section applies whether a victim is dead or alive at the time of the sexual contact or sexual intercourse.”

Notwithstanding this seemingly plain and unambiguous language, on Sept. 15, Judge George S. Curry dismissed the state’s charges of attempted sexual assault against three young men accused of trying to dig up a woman’s body in order to have sex with it.

Curry held that, notwithstanding subsec. (7), Wisconsin has no statute against necrophilia.

Assistant District Attorney Anthony J. Pozorski, Sr., who is prosecuting the case, stated in an interview with Wisconsin Law Journal that he will be asking the Wisconsin Department of Justice to pursue an interlocutory appeal. Pozorski contends that the plain meaning of the text makes clear that necrophilia is a crime, and therefore, legislative history is irrelevant to the statute’s meaning.

DOJ Attorney Gregory M. Weber stated that, when it receives a formal request, after a final order is entered, “the request will be evaluated as it would in any other case.”

The court’s decision was issued orally, and a transcript has not yet been prepared. The basis for the court’s decision, and the defense motion to dismiss, was that the subsection’s legislative history indicates it was not intended to apply to the defendant’s be-havior in this case.

Attorney Suzanne Edwards, who represents one of the defendants, said the statute was created to server a different purpose. The statute was designed to preclude defendants in cases involving both murder and rape, from arguing that the sexual contact occurred after the murder, and thus, the state’s evidence was insufficient to support a sexual assault charge, Edwards said.

The argument has its origins in the case of State v. Holt, 128 Wis.2d 110, 382 N.W.2d 679 (Ct.App.1985). Holt involved a high-profile case, in which the defendant kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered an Illinois woman in Wisconsin in 1979. Nevertheless, an overzealous Illinois prosecutor prosecuted the case in Illinois state court, and ultimately, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the convictions for lack of jurisdiction.

Holt was then retried and convicted in Wisconsin for murder, sexual assault and theft. Subsection (7) was not on the books at that time.

On appeal, Holt argued that there was insufficient evidence to support the sexual assault conviction, maintaining that the statute requires the state to prove that the victim was alive during the intercourse, and there was insufficient evidence to support such a finding.

The court of appeals rejected the argument, holding, “in a rape-murder case where the exact sequence of events cannot be proved, the jury may reasonably infer, though it need not do so, that the victim was alive during the sexual assault, at least in the absence of evidence of necrophiliac tendencies on the part of the accused.” Holt, 382 N.W.2d at 685.

According to Edwards, the legislative history of subsec. (7), which was enacted in 1986, indicates that this case was the driving force behind the statute. She said the sole purpose of the statute was to prevent defendants in rape-murder cases from raising such a defense; the statute only relieves the State of having to prove the victim was alive at the time of the attack.

The defense’s focus is on the word, “victim,” which they contend contemplates a live person being victimized, rather than a corpse. The purpose of the statute, according to Edwards, was solely to deal with the rape-murder scenario, and the statute contemplates that “victim” means a “person who dies while being victimized.” It is not intended, Edwards claimed, to be a general necrophilia statute governing defendants who had no role in the person’s death.

In a brief submitted to the court by attorney Roseann T. Oliveto, who represents another of the defendants, Oliveto contended, “If the Legislature intended that having sex with a corpse would apply here it would have been stated. There are many statutes under the criminal code addressing a corpse and prohibiting conduct against corpses. The Legislature is quite clear in distinguishing a victim as defined in chapter 940 as a ‘natural person’ and violations against people who have died, as corpses. Example, the crime of mutilation and hiding a corpse. Wis. Stat. 940.11, theft from a corpse, Wis. Stat. 943.20(e).”

Pozorski said that he expects a final decision from the Department of Justice on whether the State will file an in
terlocutory appeal within a month.

Susan G. Molini represents the third co-defendant.

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