BLOOMINGTON, Ill. -- Dead or alive, you can get a ticket from the Bloomington Police Department.

Although a dead person cannot be prosecuted, the department requires that the tickets be written.

"Anytime there is fault in an accident, we do issue the responsible person tickets," said officer Verne Hughart, an accident reconstructionist.

About two months after Jose Casas-Ruiz, 23, died in a single-car accident, Hughart ticketed him for DUI, no valid license, improper lane usage and failure to wear a properly adjusted seat belt.

A coroner's jury in March ruled Casas-Ruiz's death was accidental but avoidable because he was legally drunk at the time of the Jan. 20 accident.

"The tickets are not prosecutable. ... They are just held into evidence in case it ever goes into a civil trial. It's nothing intended to be mean or to write out tickets just because," Hughart said.

Sgt. Michael King, who heads Bloomington's traffic division, said the department's philosophy has been followed for years and is based on training principles. The officers are trained through the Northwestern University Traffic Safety Institute in Evanston and the Institute of Police Technology Management in Jacksonville, Fla.

Officials at both facilities say they were unaware of training that calls for ticketing the dead.