SCOTUS will dig into debate over alleged cemetery on Pa. farm [property rights]

Philly.com ^ | 5/24/2018 | Jason Nark

[Parley Baer]

I have some relatives that have a ranch in Alma New Mexico that has a cemetery on it. I believe the people were buried there in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Some are soldiers from the Indian wars. Not sure of the others buried there. As far as I know there has not been a problem.

[Theoria]

This might happen more and more with people looking up their ancestry and researching to found forgotten or lost resting areas of the past.

[robroys woman]

Maybe we should just bury everyone at sea, even the ones we cremate. ;)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Several dozen small cemeteries were moved prior to flooding the Rathbun Dam on the Chariton River.

[IYAS9YAS]

For all the money she’s spent on lawyers, she could have had someone come out with a machine that sees underground to determine if those are graves. IMO, those large flat stones look like tombstones. If they are, she hasn’t a leg to stand on. Evil woman.

Seems to me the burden of proof for a cemetery being there is on the man who claims there is one.

Provide proof, not speculation. If ground-penetrating-radar is necessary to prove the existence of gravesites, the burden should also fall on the claimant. Why should the property owner, who had no prior knowledge of any cemetery, and was not informed of its existence at the time of sale, nearly 50 years ago, be out any money on this? Why should she be forced to provide access to something that may not be anything at all? No one has proven a cemetery is there.

[robroys woman]

The alleged graves are over 200 years old.

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That’s the elephant in the room. It’s historical. It’s not like he’s going to visit his dead mother. He never knew any of these people and just wants to preserve his family’s heritage/power at the expense of the current landowner.

They’re dead. They’re gone. If he wants to “see” them he can get a witch doctor to bring ‘em back.

[centurion316]

We have this silliness reverence about the remains of those who have passed, and the consecrated soil where they repose. We need to get rid of all of this nonsense, Religious pomp and circumstance that does not fit into modern society. Are you a bulldozer operator?

[robroys woman]

Not when you have a cemetery on your property.

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Why not?

[DJ MacWoW]

Show me that exception in the constitution.

How about a Pennsylvania law?

HISTORIC BURIAL PLACES PRESERVATION ACT
Act of Apr. 29, 1994, P.L. 141, No. 22
AN ACT

Providing for the preservation of historic burial places and tombs, monuments and gravestones; and imposing penalties.

HISTORIC BURIAL PLACES PRESERVATION ACT

[robroys woman]

If it were my property, I’d use the stones for a nice barbeque pit and plant trees.

Like the old fake commercial on the Rush Limbaugh show for Billy Bob’s Endangered Species Extermination Service: “You can’t protect what don’t exist.”

[Mears]

I saw nothing in the law guaranteeing access,which is the issue here.

.

[Balding_Eagle]

It’s her property, and yet you call her evil? Are you nuts?

SCOTUS will back me up this fall.

[robroys woman]

The reason why SCOTUS took it, I guess?

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Yep. It sounds like they want to clear it up. And that probably means they are going to allow it to go to the Scotus even if the state court doesn’t rule.

i.e. they plan on overturning a bad precedent.

[DJ MacWoW]

I saw nothing in the law guaranteeing access,which is the issue here.

I was addressing the preservation only. Public records state that there are members of the Vail family buried there and the owner cannot, in any way, disturb the site.

[IYAS9YAS]

That law applies to municipalities trying to condemn and appropriate burial grounds for other purposes, and to people who are not the proper owners of the burial grounds stealing/removing things from them. It does not appear to have any bearing on this case at all.

Not only that, but if it did apply in any way, it would be an ex-post-facto law, as she became the owner of the property in 1970, and the law was passed in 1994. If there was a cemetery there, it should have been disclosed at the time of sale, not by the prior owner a few years ago.

[mewzilla]

Bad precedent or just bad law. Sounds like PA is really putting the screws to private property owners. If it’s SCOTUS’s intention to rein in PA, works for me.

[redgolum]

I have family in Nebraska with private cemeteries on their land. One in the middle of the section.

Fenced in and maintained by the cousin, but with access to those who wish to (by request). Not really an issue.

[robroys woman]

We have this silliness reverence about the remains of those who have passed, and the consecrated soil where they repose. We need to get rid of all of this nonsense, Religious pomp and circumstance that does not fit into modern society.

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I agree. And it is especially puzzling in a nation that claims to be Christian. This reverence for dead bodies is not a Christian teaching. Quite the opposite, actually.

I see the body as something you occupy while living in this age. I would no more visit a loved one’s grave site than visit the junk yard where the car they used to occupy when they commuted went to be crushed.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

It would be interesting to know what your relatives would think of being forced to open it up to the general public. I would bet they wouldn’t be to keen on that.

[DJ MacWoW]

Do we know if it was listed on the deed? Nope.