P v. Reid (5th Dist.) Modern Day Grave-robbing, HS 7052(a), Isn't Analogous to Theft and the Bailey Rule Is Inapplicable

Mr. Reid smashed the glass frames of nine mausoleum niches and took the urns contained within.  Within the nine urns were the cremated remains of eleven human beings.  Reid stashed the urns outside until he could return with a van to retrieve them.  Then he dumped the human remains, melted down the urns, and sold the metal for scrap.  

For this, Reid was charged and convicted of, along with other crimes, 11 counts of violating Health and Safety Code section 7052(a), which states in pertinent part:

Every person who willfully … disinters [or] removes from the place of interment … any remains known to be human, without authority of law, is guilty of a felony. 

Reid appealed his convictions, arguing that his actions only constituted one violation of 7052(a), not 11.  He also appealed the trial court's summary denial of a Pitchess motion.  

The Fifth District affirms that Reid's actions constituted 11 separate 7052(a) violations, but conditionally reverses the judgment based on an erroneous denial of Reid's Pitchess motion and remands the matter for the trial court to review the personnel file of the policeman identified in Reid's motion.

The issue of whether conduct amounts to one or several crimes is a thorny issue.  If I walk into my local bodega and nick three bottles of Pepsi, have I committed one or three counts of petty theft?  If within the bodega there is a separate counter and register where a lady (not a bodega employee) sells homemade tamales and after I steal the three bottles of Pepsi from the cooler, I walk over to the tamale counter and steal three tamales, have I committed one, two, or six thefts?  It is not always a simple question.  

To answer the question in cases involving theft, the California Supreme Court has given us the Bailey rule which describes a single offense as being "pursuant to one intention, one general impulse, and one plan" in contrast to separate offenses which evince "separate and distinct intents".  Not the clearest rule, but better than nothing.

Reid argues that his section 7052(a) crimes are analogous to theft and thus are subject to the "one intention-one impulse-one plan" rule and that his removal of the nine urns falls within the rule, as if Reid had gone into our bodega and stolen nine bottles of pop.  

The panel rejects Reid's analogy for two reasons.  First, human remains are not property in the ordinary legal sense.  Second, the moral underpinnings of 7052(a) are different from theft, says the panel.  The prohibition against removing human remains is not based upon economic efficiency, rather it is based upon public health considerations and the emotional, religious, and aesthetic interests of the survivors.  The result is that Reid's behavior constituted 11 violations, not one.