New Mexico Lawmaker Proposes Bill to Outlaw Necrophilia — Somehow Currently Not a Crime in the State

A state lawmaker in New Mexico plans to introduce a bill during the state’s upcoming legislative session that would ban necrophilia, according to a local media report.

Republican state Rep. Stefani Lord plans to introduce the bill during the 30-day session to make necrophilia, which describes sexual acts committed with a dead body, a felony. The bill would make desecrating a dead human body a fourth-degree felony and sexual penetration a second-degree felony, according to NBC’s Albuquerque affiliate KOB.

New Mexico is currently one of a handful of U.S. states without laws explicitly banning necrophilia, though they still ban the mutilation or desecration of a corpse.

“When I found out there have been women murdered in New Mexico, and then their corpse is assaulted afterward, I was like, ‘I don’t understand why this has not been criminalized yet’,” Lord said, KOB reported.

Wyoming is one of the other states that do not specifically outlaw the act, but local prosecutors have argued that most cases that would involve charging a suspect with necrophilia include other charges that are just as serious or more, such as homicide or rape, according to a report by Cowboy State Daily.

Lord said that it’s unknown how common necrophilia is in New Mexico, as police do not track it as a crime, but that police have confirmed several instances in recent years.

In 2021, New Mexico’s state supreme court ruled that corpses have legal protections against rape after a man was arrested for murdering and raping a woman in 2017.

“While it’s not prolific, it doesn’t matter. Even if it’s one, that’s all that matters,” Lord said, KOB reported.

The legislative session is set to start on Jan. 16.