Senate Bill 2098

AN ACT TO PROHIBIT DISORDERLY CONDUCT AT A FUNERAL OR MEMORIAL SERVICE AND TO PRESCRIBE CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR SUCH CONDUCT; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1. (1) The Legislature finds and declares that due to the unique nature of funeral and memorial services and the heightened opportunity for extreme emotional distress on such occasions, the purpose of this section is to protect the privacy and ability to mourn of grieving families directly before, during, and after a funeral or memorial service.

(2) For purposes of this section:

(a) "Funeral" means the ceremonies, rituals, processions, and memorial services held at a funeral site in connection with the burial, cremation, or memorial of a deceased person.

(b) "Funeral site" means a church, synagogue, mosque, funeral home, mortuary, cemetery, grave site, mausoleum, or other place at which a funeral is conducted or is scheduled to be conducted within the next thirty (30) minutes or has been conducted within the last thirty (30) minutes.

(3) A person commits the offense of disorderly conduct at a funeral or memorial service when he or she:

(a) Engages, with knowledge of the existence of a funeral site, in any loud singing, playing of music, chanting, whistling, yelling or noisemaking with, or without, noise amplification including, but not limited to, bullhorns, auto horns and microphones within three hundred (300) feet of any ingress or egress of that funeral site, where the volume of such singing, music, chanting, whistling, yelling or noisemaking is likely to be audible at and disturbing to the funeral site;

(b) Displays, with knowledge of the existence of a funeral site and within three hundred (300) feet of any ingress or egress of that funeral site, any visual images that convey fighting words or actual or veiled threats against any other person; or

(c) With knowledge of the existence of a funeral site, knowingly obstructs, hinders, impedes or blocks another person's entry to or exit from that funeral site or a facility containing that funeral site, except that the owner or occupant of property may take lawful actions to exclude others from that property.

(4) Disorderly conduct at a funeral or memorial service is a misdemeanor punishable, upon conviction, by imprisonment for not more than one (1) year and/or a fine of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00). A second or subsequent violation is a felony punishable, upon conviction, by imprisonment for not more than five (5) years and/or a fine of Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00).

(5) If any clause, sentence, section, provision, or part of this section or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is adjudged to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this section or its application to persons or circumstances other than those to which it is held invalid is not affected thereby.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2012.