MADISON, Wisconsin (AP):

Wisconsin law bans sex with dead bodies, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in reinstating charges against three men accused of digging up a corpse so one of them could have sex with it.

The court waded into the grisly case after lower court judges ruled nothing in state law banned necrophilia. Those decisions prompted public outrage and a push by a state lawmaker to make sex with a corpse a crime.

In Wednesday's 5-2 decision, the high court said Wisconsin law makes sex acts with dead people illegal because they are unable to give consent.

The ruling reinstates the attempted sexual assault charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 22. The charges carry a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

flawed decision

Justice Patience Roggensack, writing a majority opinion with three other justices, said state law bans sexual intercourse with anyone who does not give consent "whether a victim is dead or alive at the time".

"A reasonably well-informed person would understand the statute to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person," she wrote.

Jefren Olsen, an attorney who represented Radke, said the decision was flawed because the law was never intended to punish necrophilia.

"Obviously, the facts are rather notorious and not the easiest to deal with," he said. "I assume that had some impact."

Police say the three men, carrying shovels, a crowbar and a box of condoms, went to a cemetery in southwestern Wisconsin in 2006 to dig up the body of Laura Tennessen, 20, who had been killed the week before in a motorcycle crash.

third-degree sexual assault

Nicholas Grunke had seen an obituary photo of her and asked the others for help digging up her corpse so he could have sexual intercourse with it, prosecutors say.

Authorities say the men used shovels to reach her grave, but were unable to pry open the vault. They fled when a car drove into the cemetery and were eventually arrested.

The men were charged with attempted third-degree sexual assault and misdemeanour attempted-theft charges.