Family Gets Justice

The ruling, made public today, also means that the family of Nicole "Nikki" Catsouras can proceed with their civil action against the CHP, which admitted to improperly disseminating pictures of the 18-year-old's remains following a high-speed crash on a toll road in Lake Forest on Oct. 31, 2006.

The CHP admitted that two employees, Thomas O'Donnell and Aaron Reich, e-mailed nine photos of Nikki's body to friends and family for apparent shock value on Halloween day in 2006.

I have nothing against the California Highway Patrol. Most of their employees are good men and women, and deserve our support. But I thought the lower court ruling, where the negligence case brought by the Catsoursa family was dismissed, was terribly, terribly wrong. The employee of the CHP who leaked those accident scene photos was negligent and the CHP must be held accountable for its employee, or, at the very least, the case should be placed in front of a jury.

I had the misfortune of seeing those pictures and they were truly horrific. The opinion of the justices call the officers' actions "morally deficient." But reading the opinion, you can feel the disgust they have for these men. And deservedly so.