What you can (or can’t do) with dead Texans. Here’s how state law explains it
Death is an inevitable part of life.
Laying someone to rest may come in the form of a burial or cremation. In Texas, its actually legal to bury a loved one in your backyard or on any piece of land on your estate.
But what if you need to move a corpse to another cemetery or burial site? Here’s what we know about corpse laws in Texas:
Is it legal to dig up a corpse in Texas?
Yes, remains may be moved from a cemetery plot under certain circumstances.
Under Texas Health and Safety Code section 711.004, removal of remains are legal with the written consent of the cemetery organization, current plot owners and the following people:
- The person designated in written form signed by the decedent.
- The decedent’s surviving spouse.
- Any one of the decedent’s surviving adult children.
- Either one of the decedent’s surviving parents.
- Any one of the decedent’s surviving adult siblings.
- Any one of the duly qualified executors or administrators of the decedent’s estate.
- Any adult person in the next degree of kinship in the order named by law to inherit the estate of the decedent.
What is the penalty for desecrating a corpse in Texas?
Under Texas Penal Code section 42.08, a person commits an offense if they, without legal authority, knowingly:
- Disinters, disturbs, damages, dissects, in whole or in part, carries away, or treats in an offensive manner a human corpse.
- Conceals a human corpse knowing it to be illegally disinterred.
- Sells or buys a human corpse or in any way traffics in a human corpse.
- Transmits or conveys, or procures to be transmitted or conveyed, a human corpse to a place outside the state.
- Vandalizes, damages, or treats in an offensive manner the space in which a human corpse has been interred or otherwise permanently laid to rest.
Offenses under the first four sections above are a state jail felony and punishable by a fine up to $10,000 and jail time between 180 days and two years. Vandalizing a corpse is a Class A misdemeanor and punishable by a fine up to $4,000 and up to a year in jail.
