There's more to story than cold hard cash
Lee Benson
Santa Clara County to pay $400,000 to Palo Alto family
Sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? Just look for the family driving new BMWs.
But as is often the case, there is more to the story than cold hard cash.
In this case, the rather substantial sum of money reported in the headline represents a family's 12 1/2-year effort to clear their father's good name — and considering they spent $800,000 to do it, from a strictly fiscal standpoint it was hardly profitable.
But it was what accompanied the 400-grand that makes it worthwhile.
An apology.
On official stationery signed by County Executive Peter Kutras Jr., the County of Santa Clara (Calif.) formally apologized to the family of the late Nelson Galbraith for sloppy work by the police, the coroner and the prosecutor's office that conspired to put Mr. Galbraith on trial for murdering his wife.
And now Nelson Galbraith can finally rest in complete peace.
I first brought this story to the attention of Deseret News readers three years ago when chances of the above happening hovered between slim and none.
The suit contended that Nelson Galbraith's civil rights had been trampled when he was charged with murder after his wife, 76-year-old Josephine Galbraith, was found dead in a guest bedroom of their Palo Alto home in the fall of 1995.
Distraught because of failing health, Josephine had strangled herself with a bathrobe sash, but after an autopsy, county coroner Angelo Ozoa ruled that the death was not a suicide, but a homicide, which led to Josephine's husband, already dealing with one nightmare, being led away from his wife's side in handcuffs to face another.
The murder charge didn't stick — Nelson Galbraith was found not guilty in a 1997 jury trial that easily exposed the coroner's work as complete incompetence, thereby dismantling the foundation of the case — but the trauma did.
Nelson would lay awake nights wondering how the government, his government, could be allowed to get away with the kind of ineptitude and subsequent cover-ups that led to him being falsely accused and imprisoned in the first place.
With the support of his family, and fueled by a determination to spare others a similar ordeal, he filed suit against Santa Clara County and Ozoa.
After Nelson Galbraith died in 2002, at the age of 83, his family vowed to continue on.
Recent comments
Good article! I sometimes think prosecutors are more interested...
Bill | May 10, 2008 at 11:06 p.m.
Reminds me of what I'm going through for my mother in Holden...
Tom | May 4, 2008 at 4:34 p.m.
Prosecutors engage in this kind of extortionate behavior all the...
Reasonable doubt | May 4, 2008 at 11:46 a.m.
