Killing Zombies Is Against The Law In Louisiana

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Its spooky season, which means a lot of people who normally wouldn't think or talk about ghost, ghouls, and zombies are thinking about those things. Which is actually pretty good for horror movie fans, and those who enjoy spooky stuff all year.

But with all of the extra attention on spooky stuff, you get to have some new ideas thrown into the mix when new questions are asked. Which is exactly what happened today during a zombie conversation.

It actually came up in the office as we were watching a trailer for the latest Resident Evil movie. The question was "would it be legal to shoot a zombie?", and holy crap how have I never thought of this before...

This is a legit question. Because we think about the zombie apocalypse in a lot of different ways. We think about where we would hide to protect ourselves, what weapons we would need, where we would get food, how would we generate electricity...all valid questions. But what about the law?

In reality, laws would likely be suspended during some crazy zombie outbreak. But what if it's not catastrophic? We always depict a zombie outbreak as the end days. What if it's actually closer to the COVID-19 outbreak? Where, yeah there are zombies out there, but we can still live our lives around them.

That's a pretty real possibility. They're slow moving, so you can avoid them. They're dumb, so you can outsmart them. So we could eventually just live around them, and laws would still be in place.

No matter what the pace and scenario of the outbreak is, the ultimate question "would it be legal"? The best answer I can find, is "no". At least, not in Louisiana.

According to Louisiana law LA Rev Stat § 8:654 (2019):

"Whoever mutilates any human remains without authority of law shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three years or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or both."

Now in addition to this, we all have to acknowledge that murder is also against the law. Along with manslaughter too.

So if you consider a zombie to be a reanimated dead body, you would be violating the law spelled out above. But if you don't apply that law, because you believe a zombie to be alive, then you have to start considering murder or manslaughter laws.

Short of some kind of declaration of martial law that would suspend these laws during a zombie outbreak, killing a zombie would actually be against Louisiana law.