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Supreme Court to hear claims in crematory bodies case

Written by DeadGirl
Saturday, 16 October 2004
10/12/2004 The Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) Ã¢â‚¬â€ The state Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear an appeal from a northwest Georgia crematory operator accused of failing in his duty to burn hundreds of corpses, including whether a body can be considered as property under theft laws. Attorneys for Ray Brent Marsh had asked a Superior Court judge to throw out most of the 787 criminal charges pending against Marsh stemming from the discovery of 334 decaying bodies at Tri-State Crematory in February 2002. Judge James Bodiford refused two months ago to dismiss 561 charges, including 122 counts of burial service fraud and 439 counts of theft by taking. Marsh also faces 179 counts of abuse of a body and 47 counts of making false statements. The trial had been scheduled to begin Monday but was put on hold pending the appeal of Bodiford's ruling. Marsh's attorneys had argued that some of the charges don't fit the descriptions under the laws of Georgia, that dead bodies are not property that is subject to the state's theft laws, and that relatives of the dead don't have a legally required fiduciary relationship. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court gave Marsh 10 days to file a notice of appeal in Walker County Superior Court to address three issues: Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ Is a human corpse the property of another so that it might be the subject of theft by taking? Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ If a human corpse is the property of another and can be the subject of theft by taking, is the operator of a crematorium in a fiduciary relationship with the owners of the property taken so as to make the taking a felony? Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ What is the legal definition of "fiduciary relationship" that should be submitted to the jury charged with resolving the issue of the existence of such a relationship? Marsh defense attorney Ken Poston said Georgia law is unclear on whether a body can be considered someone's property, which could be stolen by another. "The precedent case is almost spiritual in tone," Poston said. He said it boils down to a question of "What's really left. The soul is departed, and what's left doesn't remain static. It returns quickly into the earth, basically." The question is important in Marsh's case, Poston said, because felony theft involves taking something worth more than $500. But cost is irrelevant if the alleged thief has a financial responsibility to the victim. "If the person doing the alleged theft has a fiduciary relationship, it doesn't matter what the value is," Poston said. He said state law does not define fiduciary relationship but that it should not apply to the operator of a crematory. "A third-party contractor certainly does not have a fiduciary relationship with people he never meets," Poston said. http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1097619880182950.xml&storylist=alabamanews

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries