October 16, 2001
On October 12, 2001, Associate Circuit Judge Gary A. Kamp found the Missouri criminal statute of abandonment of a corpse unconstitutional and dismissed a criminal charge against James E. Bratina for violating the statute. On October 16, 2001, Lora E. Cooper, an assistant prosecuting attorney with the Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, appealed the ruling to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Bratina is the first person in Cape Girardeau County to be charged with violating the statute, which was passed by the Missouri Legislature in 1995. The statute reads: "A person commits the crime of abandonment of a corpse if that person abandons, disposes, deserts or leaves a corpse without properly reporting the location of the body to proper law enforcement officials in that county." It is a class D felony, carrying a range of punishment from one day to one year in the county jail or from one to five years in prison.
On August 29, 2001, Cooper had filed charges against James E. Bratina, 29, of 725 W. Independence, Apt. 1, Jackson, Missouri, for abandonment of a corpse and endangering the welfare of a child. Count I of the complaint alleged that Bratina committed the crime of abandonment of a corpse "on or about January 15, 2001" in that he "knowingly left the corpse of Suyapa M. Bratina at the apartment at 725 W. Independence, Apartment #1, Jackson, Missouri, at approximately 6:40 a.m., and went to his place of work, without properly reporting the location of the body to the proper law enforcement officials at that time. A probable cause affidavit filed with the court by Detective Jamie Humphreys of the Jackson Police Department alleged that Bratina discovered his wife dead on the floor (of alcohol and drug intoxication) before he left for work, but that he went ahead and went to work without notifying authorities, leaving his three-year-old child alone with the body "for almost four hours." Count II of the complaint alleged that Bratina committed the crime of endangering the welfare of a child in the second degree in that "the defendant acted with criminal negligence in a manner that created a substantial risk to the health of Sydney Bratina, a child less than seventeen years old, by knowingly leaving Sydney Bratina, age 3, alone and without supervision in an apartment with a dead body for a period of time of approximately three to four hours."
On October 4, 2001, Stephen C. Wilson, the attorney for Bratina, filed a motion to dismiss the abandonment of the corpse count on the grounds that the criminal statute was void for being unconstitutionally vague. Wilson cited cases holding that a criminal statute must be written with sufficient specificity to "give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly." He argued that the statute was too vague "for several reasons" including a failure to define "abandon," a failure to give guidance as to what is meant by "properly reporting," and a failure to specify what is meant by "proper officials."
In her responding brief for Judge Kamp, Cooper argued that the statue was not unconstitutionally vague, citing cases holding that "statutes are presumed constitutional" and "doubts are to be resolved in favor of validity." She argued that the abandonment of the corpse statute "is sufficient to place the defendant on notice that he must report a corpse to law enforcement officials before leaving the location of the corpse." She pointed out that the words "corpse," "proper," and "official" are in standard dictionaries and are words of common usage. She wrote, "It is clear that a person of ordinary intelligence would have picked up the telephone, called 911 for assistance, recognizing that the person on the other end of the 911 call would be a proper law enforcement official."
Judge Kamp ultimately agreed with Wilson, finding that the statute is "unconstitutionally vague in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in that the statute does not give sufficient notice and fair warning to persons of ordinary intelligence what is prohibited, and does not adequately inform persons of ordinary intelligence what obligations they have under the statute," nor "give adequate guidance, through explicit standards, to prosecuting authorities such that arbitrary and discriminatory application can be avoided."
The prosecution of the count for endangering the welfare of a child will sit in limbo while awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court on the abandonment of a corpse count.
Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle noted that the case was one of first impression in Missouri. "This is the first time the issue has come up as far as I know. There are no cases interpreting this statute at the appellate level."
Bratina remains free on bond pending the outcome of the case.