You still can’t just walk into a private business and start messing around
Thoroughly confused
Its says a lot about our society that both in the story and in the dozens of replies to it there is hardly any mention that the man was killed by police officers for driving away from them. If a person an any other profession killed someone and gave that as their reason, it would be considered a murder confession.
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Oh I agree, but the law acts really weird about things left in the care of a third party and cases where evidence might go away. If they had the consent of the funeral home, that was probably enough, but even if they didn’t, it would still probably fall under exigent circumstances. That being said, the fact that the cops are looking for evidence to incriminate a guy they killed doesn’t make me want to extend them the benefit of the doubt.
Shame the accompanying picture shows officers wearing British-style police uniform. To my knowledge, nothing like this has ever been done by British police.
thank you. very disingenuous headline.
honestly we don’t need exaggeration here, the facts alone are just f*cked enough , thanks.
as bad as any other type of disinfo and internet BS we have everywhere now.
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Are you… disappointed in Boing Boing?
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Other than trying to use it to solve his murder, that is what happened. The cops do not appear to have gone to the funeral itself. They went to the funeral parlour where the body was waiting for burial.
Bad enough in itself as everyone agrees.
https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4512&context=mulr
Walter F. Kuzenski, Property in Dead Bodies, 9 Marq. L. Rev. 17 (1924).
Little bit old, but hey…
TL:DR - common law originally said there is no property in a corpse (and my understanding is that this is still correct in UK law).
US law varies by state but mostly seem to have decided that there is some form of property right to a corpse, while not agreeing on what that right is or what its legal foundation is.
There’s also this:
According to that, Florida law takes the traditional route of not quite saying that there is a property right to a corpse but stating that relatives have a right to the corpse in order to bury it.
So the relatives don’t own the corpse but they have a right to possession of it for the purposes of burial and if that right is interfered with they can sue for damages.
The cops don’t appear to have done that. They didn’t withhold the body from the family. They didn’t prevent its burial.
They might have trespassed but it appears the funeral parlour let them in, so…
Basic lesson - if you are a business and the cops show up and ask to look around, don’t agree. Call your lawyer. Call a lawyer. Any lawyer. Just call one.
But we’ve all had 30-40 years worth of cop shows telling us that when cops show up and ask questions, asking for your lawyer is what criminals do and WE MUST COMPLY.
Can the funeral parlour be sued? Doubtful.
http://rolandarosello.com/tortious-interference-with-dead-bodies-creates-a-claim-for-mental-anguish
All the cases listed in that article do seem to involve some sort of withholding of the body for a time or physical damage to the corpse.
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Reminds me of these cases where relatives of dead people have tried to access devices owned by the deceased person, and Apple, at least has acted to protect that information, rather than to just hand it out.
Maybe these relatives have been missing the point. They have the owner’s finger, and face. Possession is 9/10ths of the law…
I’d say if you are executor, you’re entitled to the deceased’s info.
Some email providers do not agree, of course.
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And you can get just as many to disagree with that opinion. Since it is a matter of some scholarly debate, I don’t think the state can assume there is no expectation of privacy and indeed of dignity. Common law and state legislatures already recognize posthumous dignitary interests so while they may have some lawyers who say that the expectation of privacy is moot upon death, I’d wager they’d be less inclined to assert a that the indignity suffered by the deceased through this action could be viewed as defensible.
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I think this might be decided by any existing precedent where next of kin have a court dispute about what to do with remains. I imagine there have been a lot of cases where family was divided on burial / cremation, or where the burial should be, etc.
I’m not really sold on the ownership vs right of possession aspect. A corpse can’t give consent for a search, so does the corpse (and thus the owner or possessor, I suppose) have a right to privacy? As part of an investigation, I’m sure the state has a right to do what they need with a body to help solve a crime. But less clear cut is what the police can do with a body that’s been released to next of kin when biometric access is needed. If the phone were protected with a passcode, there wouldn’t be an issue.
Maybe we just need better biometrics that somehow rely on the conscious mind of the device owner, like having a camera track your eye movements in a particular pattern, but that’s arguably not more convenient than using a swipe pattern to unlock, since you don’t need to necessarily look at your phone to unlock it when swiping. One thing it does offer is 2FA, since it’s something you have (e.g. retina / iris map) and something you know (eye movement pattern).
See the links I gave 
That’s exactly what most of the cases referred to are.
I think that’s a key issue. The family did not have physical control of access to the body here. The funeral parlour did.
If the body had been at the home of one of the family, say for an old-style laying-out or wake, then I don’t think the police would have been entitled to rock up and insist on access to the corpse.
I don’t think they were legally entitled to insist at the funeral parlour. The parlour just let them in anyway.
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It’s weird and more than slightly disturbing because it implies that if someone wants to do something to a corpse, so long as it doesn’t involve holding its burial up or damaging it, you can’t legally stop them?
Yeah, and also in those narratives, if someone makes some noise about getting a lawyer, the cops will get the warrant/court order anyways and make their life impossible. Or at least that’s always the threat, and innocent people always give in (and they’re fine and don’t suffer any difficulties as a result of going along with what the cops want).
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Yeah, according to Apple, FaceID only works to unlock for 48 hours, then it reverts to requiring a passcode
Don’t use your index finger. You can use a knuckle joint. If you are forced to place your finger on your phone by the police, a few failed attempts with your index finger will lock it.
On an locked iPhone, if you rapidly click the lock button (on the side) five times, you activate SOS mode, which disables TouchID until you enter your passcode.
You should also change your passcode to an alphanumeric one for added security.
Anybody hassles you, you can quickly activate SOS mode discretely from your pocket.
Yes if anything they expedited the funeral. From now on, it is Tuesday, people will order only Taco.
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