§ 13-6-408 — Desecration of burial grounds and burial furniture

(a) Anyone who intentionally or knowingly desecrates or permits desecration of a burial ground and associated burial furniture is committing on the first offense a Class D felony and on the second or subsequent offenses a Class C felony. (b) The presence in the ground of grave markers, caskets, or casket hardware creates a rebuttable presumption that these are burial furniture and of the existence or presence of a human burial ground. (c) Exempted from this section is disturbance of human skeletal burial remains or burial furniture by landowners or agricultural tenants as a consequence of agricultural activity or any other activity unless the landowner or agricultural tenant knowingly desecrates or knowingly allows desecration of a cemetery or burial site.

Legislative History

Acts 1991, No. 753, § 6; 1999, No. 1533, § 3; 2005, No. 2232, § 5.