P.R. Laws tit. 34, § 3016
(a) Every person having knowledge of a death occurring under any of the circumstances specified in § 3011 of this title shall immediately report the same to the Puerto Rico Police or to any judge or prosecutor, who shall proceed to advise the Institute. Any person who wilfully neglects to report a death occurring under the aforesaid circumstances shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
(b) Any person who, without a written permit from the competent authorities, touches, moves or lifts the body of a person who died under such circumstances, or touches or moves the clothes or objects close to the body, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. Such prohibitions exclude physicians authorized by the Institute, hospitals, clinics, health centers, and any other institutions which render medical-hospital services, whether they be public or private, whenever death occurs in situations where the circumstances of violence or crime included in clauses (1) and (2) of subsection (a) of § 3011 of this title are not present. In such cases, the cadavers shall be transported and preserved in the morgues of the institutions involved, until a prosecutor, trial judge or official of the Institute with authority to do so, authorizes the removal of the body. Likewise, the clothes and objects of the deceased, together with objects found close to the corpse, shall be gathered and preserved intact to be placed at the disposal of the prosecutor, trial judge and/or officials of the Institute charged with investigating the case at a later date.
History —July 24, 1985, No. 13, p. 689, § 16, retroactive to July 1, 1985.