Judge Rules Against Slain Soldier's Family

[cal04]

A judge has ruled against relatives of an Oklahoma soldier slain in Iraq who had sued Harper's magazine over its publication of a photograph of his body in an open casket. Kyle Brinlee's father and grandfather had claimed the publication of the photo was "so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all bounds of decency." But in his ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Frank Seay noted that the photo had been taken at a funeral attended by about 1,200 people, including Oklahoma's governor.


"If the plaintiffs wanted to grieve in private they should not have held a public funeral and had a section reserved for the press," Seay wrote. Brinlee, a carpentry and masonry specialist with the Army's 120th Combat Engineer Battalion, was killed by a homemade bomb and was Oklahoma's first National Guardsman killed in combat since the
Korean War. Everyone who attended the May 2004 funeral could gaze upon the slain soldier lying on a white pillow, with his white-gloved hands folded over his crisp uniform. But members of Brinlee's family including his father, Robert Showler, and his maternal grandfather, Johnny Davidson, were outraged when Peter Turnley's photograph appeared in a photo essay in Harper's August 2004 edition.

"The casket was open for friends and family - not to gawk at and take pictures and publish them. Not for economic gain," Showler and Davidson's lawyer, Douglas Stall, said last week. The pair's case against the magazine and Turnley alleged invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unjust enrichment, among other complaints. It sought unspecified punitive damages and more than $75,000 in actual damages each on four of the seven complaints. Harper's Magazine publisher John R. MacArthur said Friday that the ruling was a victory for the First Amendment.

"We have great sympathy for the family and great sympathy for Kyle and all the other soldiers we depicted in the essay," he said. "I feel we have an obligation to show the coffins and the bodies in a respectful way, and we thought this was a perfectly respectful way to do it." Turnley, an internationally known photographer, had denied the lawsuit's assertions that he was twice warned by the funeral home against photographing Brinlee's body. Stall said he had not spoken with Showler or Davidson after receiving the judge's order Friday but was considering whether to appeal.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SLAIN_SOLDIER_PHOTO?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[MercutioATC]

1. Good sense in the judiciary...who would have thought???

I didn't see the picture. It may have been tasteless. It certainly seems to have upset the family.

However, this was organized BY THE FAMILY as a very public event, with accomodations made specifically for the press.

If you don't want pictures taken, perhaps alerting the media isn't such a good idea...

[Cha]

2. Yeeeaaaah!

More of those coffin pictures need to be shown..maybe people wouldn't be so gung ho to send someone else'ls kid.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. I don't quite understand open caskets - it seems degrading to the dead

Maybe I'm crazy, but to me, personally, the family of this guy seems totally whacko. It almost seems cruel, and a mockery to the deceased to have 1200 people (most of which I'm sure were not close to him), staring at his face as if he were some dead insect. He can't turn his face away. Give the man some privacy and don't display him that way. The relatives of this kid should not have done this to him.

[pop goes the weasel]

4. it depends on your culture

In much of the US, a closed casket is considered something done only when the body is visually horrifying. The tradition of an open casket goes back to the days when people worried about being buried alive. Far from being a mockery of the deceased, it is a last grace that people attend the viewing/wake and verify the death.

I think that family is being disingenuous to claim that their privacy was violated when the whole purpose of an open casket funeral is to expose the death to the public. Especially seeing as they invited the press.

[orleans]

5. if they wanted to ensure no pictures they should not have invited

the press--or invite the press but have a closed casket.
they tempted fate and it bit. duh.

[FormerOstrich]

6. Open Caskets

are a gruesome practice IMHO.

My ex-significant other lost his 19 year old son. He was terribly hard on him and he couldn't face making the arrangements. He asked me to work with his ex-wife and told me the only thing he wanted was NO Open Casket.

Well his ex-wife was unreasonable about it. So I finally made the concession they could have the open casket before the service before the service and I would bring the father after the "viewing" time. The funeral director was in the room as we argued on this and knew I was adamant about it.

So the day of the funeral I bring the father. As soon as I get there he goes into the main room and the casket is OPEN. It was horrible how it affected him. I was furious. The ex-wife approached me and said she had waited because she wanted to ask me one more time to reconsider since he "looked so nice".

I went straight to the director and told him to shut the fucking casket NOW or I was going to. I don't think anyone had ever talked to the good Mormon director (yes, this was in Utah) in such a way. He shut the casket but the damage was done. It was a horrible.

back to the topic, I don't have any sympathy for the parents. I think it's terrible they had an open casket there to be photographed. Shame on them.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

7. Open caskets are degrading.

If family members wish, there should be a private time when they can open the casket and look all they want. Or perhaps whoever in the immediate family should have a time to have open casket or whatever.

However, I still think it's insulting to the deceased to be on display like a painting, since the deceased has no option of turning away or concealing him/herself. When we're alive, and we're stared at, we choose to turn away, and we can. It's horrible that a dead person is gawked and stared at by countless, when in life he/she would not have wanted that. I mean, think about it... would you want people gawking at your dead face? It's humiliating and disrespectful. Just my 2 cents.

[Skittles]

8. I just don't want the last time I see someone to be their dead body

it is macabre

[TheGunslinger]

9. Sounds like a bit of smackdown by the judge.

[Richard Steele]

10. 1200-person funeral with a designated PRESS area? Good ruling, IMO.

Sounds like a pretty frivolous lawsuit
after a funeral like that.

The lawyers quote seems kinda laughable:
"The casket was open for friends and family - not to gawk at and take pictures and publish them."

Yeah, 1200 friends and family, right?

And I guess they thought all the strangers with cameras
in the DESIGNATED PRESS AREA were just distant relatives
taking photos for their private family albums, right?

[Voltaire99]

11. Go, Harper's!

Pleased to see this ridiculous suit failed.

Harper's is a shining example of a vigorous press--one of the last major manifestations of such that you can find in the US. I never miss an issue.