Court Opinion

ID: 9868146
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 17:59:05.989367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:41.722002
License: Public Domain

Sundermann, Judge,
concurring separately.
{¶ 125} I concur in the well-reasoned opinion of the court. I agree that Condon’s guilt has been proven and that consecutive sentences are appropriate in this case. I write separately to say that I think that the trial court could properly have found that these were the worst forms of the offense of abuse of a corpse. It has been argued that taking pictures of corpses cannot be the worst form of the offense and that the worst form occurs only where bodies have been mutilated or subjected to some other physical abuse, but not when they have been photographed. That is indeed a terrible thing, but the bodies so abused are beyond pain or humiliation. We must look to how the acts of Condon affected the deceased’s family and friends. I believe that the trial court could reasonably have found that, as terrible as it would be to have a loved one’s body abused, it could be far worse to have the naked corpse displayed without permission in some sort of “art” show or on the Internet. Clearly the purpose of these pictures was for their use in Condon’s project to capture the “life cycles” of humans. There could be no reason for a professional photographer to take them other than to put them on display. They were not so displayed only because the police intervened before this could happen. I cannot say that the trial court erred in taking this view and in thereupon imposing the maximum sentence for certain counts.