What it means
Section 872.01 is Florida's oldest line against a market in the dead: whoever buys, sells, or possesses for the purpose of buying, selling, or trafficking in the dead body of any human being commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.
The statute carves out the one market the law wants to exist. Nothing in it prohibits obtaining, dissecting, using, and disposing of dead bodies for teaching or university research by a medical school, dental school, school of nursing, or other research or teaching unit of a chartered institution of higher learning. That exception — with chapter 765's anatomical-gift framework and §873.01's felony organ-and-tissue ban — is the narrow channel through which body donation lawfully runs in Florida.
- Buying, selling, or possessing a dead human body for sale or trafficking: misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
- Express exception for teaching and university research at accredited medical, dental, and nursing schools and chartered institutions.
- The felony counterpart is §873.01 — organs and tissue for valuable consideration; §872.01 is the older, general trafficking bar.
How it plays out
Prosecutions under this section are rare, but the statute is the backdrop every whole-body donation arrangement operates against. When a client wants to leave their body to a university program, the paperwork matters precisely because the lawful channel is an exception to a criminal statute: a documented anatomical gift to a qualified institution sits inside the exception, while informal arrangements with anyone else do not. We treat the donation documents as part of the estate plan, not an afterthought.
Related sections
