Punishment enough

Higbee looks like a really nice guy...but...he was speeding, it was dark, no lights, no siren...blew throught a stop sign..huh? this is criminally wreckless. Two innocent girls, the only children of their mother, gone in a flash. Higbee and others cannot do this!

The right verdict, indeed, and thank you Jami for acknowledging that. I'm a cop so I usually find myself in disagreement with the defense bar. Cudos to you on your trial coverage, for all along it has been fair, impartial, and insightful.

I think Higbee made a mistake, a huge mistake, in the way he was driving; but I do not think he should be held criminally liable. The policy is what is at fault here! It is insane to expect troopers to "close the gap" and to "engage" the violator before activating emergency equipment. Sure, you can put into policy that they can't violate traffic laws while closing the gap, but come on.

State Troopers, particularly, are under enormous pressure to write tickets. It's what troopers do. If they don't produce tickets, they hear about it.

They should be allowed, even expected, to utilize their emergency equipment to get to a violator – and then they should use due regard during the emergency operation.

The policies and practices in place with New Jersey State Police predicated this tragic accident.

You said it best, Higbee can never get away from what happened, and he should not have been imprisoned for doing his job.

Also Mrs. Ciafa showed herself to be a woman of class to have her private conversatoin with the trooper.

I will not be vacationing anywhere near Cape May ever because I do not want to become a hood ornament on some out of control trooper.

Sad all the way around

I'm still wondering as to why there was a request by the jury for a calculator and a ruler.
Don't see how that could have had any effect on the verdict.

My heart goes out to Mrs. Caiafa far more than it does to trooper Higbee. He still has his life, she has lost her innocent daughters forever!

Now that Robert Higbee is no longer under the cloud of criminal liability, he will be able to devote his energy and help the Caiafa Family know that the short life and endless loss of Christina and Jacqueline Becker is forever remembered and cherished.

As my deposition nears in a my civil case I feel tremendous pain because of what occurred. I am involved in a civil case due to a tragic accident that happened, causing the death of the other driver. I was unconscious behind the wheel no one knows why it happened. I have no closure, the family has no closure. No one will ever be able to tell us why it happened. Justice is an elusive thing. There will be no justice for the family of those young girls. I know Trooper Higbee's pain and no amount of jail time could be worse than the pain he lives in every day.

There is a God. This poor man will have to forever live with the results of this horrendous accident. He will never again be able to sleep through the night without re-living the tragic events of that night.

I sincerely feel for the family of the girls.

I am in awe of Maria Caiafa's reactions to the trooper. Thank you Ms. Caiafa for demonstrating how a grieving mother should conduct herself. I applaud you.

this case should have never gone to trial. What a waste of tax payers money. But in the end justice was done! Congratulation to Higbee and his defense team for a great win!!

Thankyou for the follow up report on this trial. It helps a great deal.

I think the justice system worked. This man did not wontanly take the lives of these two young girls. It was a tragic accident. The memory will haunt him forever, I certainly wish him well and hope that he can get on with his live

I believe that Rockerfeller is guilty. It is clear, he planned the entire escapade down to rehearsing the get away with the livery driver the day before. He is not Insane ,he just blew it with his greedy, manipulative ways.

I think the state of New Jersey needs to take a long hard look at their way of doing things. I also think that Trooper Higbee used poor judgement when he followed this procedure. The policy of closing the gap and engaging was designed to lower the chances of a chase. That may be fine on the Interstate, but not in a rural area. Common sense and situational awareness could have prevented this tragedy.

Art:
I agree with you 100%.

After watching the trial I agree with the verdict. No winners here. I have wondered though had the one daughter been wearing her seatbelt might both girls have survived the crash. The defense touched on this theory but did not want to blame the victim. It seems that the one victim crashing into the other caused the most severe injury. The car appeared severely damaged but still in one piece. Was the accident survivable. Both of my young driving daughters watched this trial with me. Its a tragic loss of life. Several times during the trial news would break in about a chase in Texas or California what an irony that Mr. Higbee was on trial for scenes that continue to play out in this country. Stop all police chases, it is not worth the innocent loss of life.

I Thank the jury for making a honest verdict.Robert higbee was just doing his job chasing after the speeder.Hemade a few careless mistakes along the way but we all have.My heart and prayers go out for the familys of the becker girls family and may god be with them.

craig fromGeorgia

I once heard Jack Ford ask a guest if a prosecutor should bring a case to trial if he thinks someone is guilty of a crime, even if he does not believe he can prove it beyond a resonable doubt. It is like he might get a jury to convict anyway. Well as I recall Jack you agreed with your guest that a prosecutor probably should. You tell me if I am wrong. Well I certainly thought that was a pathetic point of view at the time seeing how the State seems to have unlimited tax dollars at its expense to people trying to get by. Well I will agree with you this one time Jack, at least this pathetic cop who had total disregard for human life as he sped thru the intersection got a chance to sit in the hot seat. The prosecutor probably knew he had a hard case, the cops did not want to testify against him, the jury was seen by all cops involved so they were going to bring a quilty verdict? I dare say this cop would not have got away with murder if he had been say in a state where they hold everyone accountable for their actions instead of this bleeding heart community.

It occurs to me this talk about "punished enough" , "the rest of his life", and so forth, are not really material to his guilt or innocence under the law, are they? These are emotional appeals for sympathy and, no matter how natural it may be to feel it, jurors are always told not to base their verdict on sympathy for either side. If that was part of their deliberations, it was improper. I am not upset over the "not guilty" verdict, but I do think trying the case in criminal court was appropriate.

I agree with Art. Apparently, troopers are trained to follow certain procedures. In an ideal world every trooper will constantly be evaluating and reevaluating, as Higbee said he did. However, if a procedure is inherently dangerous, such as high speed "gap closing" with no warning devices, perhaps it should be changed or eliminated.

Art and Ken-

So, your solution would be to allow drunken drivers and speeders to have their way on our streets and roads?

Every day, in every state, probably at every hour, a law enforcement officer commences a chase of a driver violating our motor vehicle laws. This is just one case, there's bound to be many others, where mistakes were made and an accident occurred. But, the percentage of this type of accident is very small compared to accidents caused by drivers ignoring the traffic laws or driving under some influence.

Your solution may lower the number of accidents caused by troopers and police officers doing their job, but how many more accidents will result when there is no fear of being chased by law enforcement?

I completely agree with the "Not Guilty" verdict in the trooper Higbee case. This man was doing his job. He wasn't out to hurt himself or anyone else, it was just a tragic accident all the way around. I also wonder if the Becker girls may have survived if one had been wearing her seatbelt. It's a very sad case all the way around. My heart goes out to the Becker family. I can't imagine having to go through what they have gone through. My heart went out to the Higbee family also. Alot of people may think he got away with this and it won't effect his life. I beg to differ. I think he will live with this for the rest of his life, and I do believe he is very sorry for what happened. That intersection should have been changed long before it did. If you remember right there were alot of accidents there before this one, and funny how they decided to change it after THIS accident. If they had changed it before then, maybe the accident wouldn't have happpened in the first place and the Becker girls would still be alive. I will always believe the jury made the right decision in this case. If I remember right the speeder didn't have any lights on and was also speeding. I think that was definately probable cause for the trooper to check into him. Did he get anything out of this whole thing? I don't even think he would have came forward if someone didn't hear him bragging about it. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just my opinion.

Keep us posted on how Trouper Higbee comes out with his job and his future. I feel the outcome was just what it should have been. It is so sad and I feel sorry for the girls mother. She will make a difference. Her integrity throughout the trial was commendable.

Higbee may feel quilty for the rest of his life for killing those two girls but what about the troopers out there (and they are out there) that have that 'God complex' and will not feel any quilt or remorse when they make the same mistakes Higbee made and kill someone? It's obvious now that these troopers are not held responsible for deadly mistakes. I could not accept it if my children were looked at as just "collateral damage."

Two words.

Thank God.

And I hope he has mercy on all the souls involved.

Amen.

I watched most of this trial on TruTv and several things stuck out in my mind. The state trooper was in pursuit of a driver who was going 20 to 30 miles over the speed limit. The state trooper was also going over the speed limit in "pusuit" of the driver but he did not have on a siren or his lights. He ran a stop sign. There was someone who testified concerning what the procedures were in a pursuit and he did not heed several of those. I guess they are not really standard procedures but optional procedures. I do not agree with the verdict because if he had been a civilian I am sure he would have been convicted just based on running the stop sign

All this baloney about, "if he were a civilian".

Can anyone give me a valid reason why a civilian would run a stop sign?

Higbee had a valid reason. He was doing his job.

Hey, what if Higbee was a civilian and ran a stop sign while rushing his wife to the hospital to give birth? Would everyone be demanding he spend twenty years in jail for these deaths?

Additionally, people need to actually look into what happens to a civilian running a stop sign. Unless there is gross negligence, i.e. under the influence of something or street racing, just running a stop sign is not going to get you in prison, even if you kill someone.

Your prison sentence will be for the rest of your life and in all your dreams. As it will be for Robert Higbee.

cops will always get away with anything...

Most of the comments supporting the not guilty verdict would be laughable if not for the loss of life involved here. It's a sad state of affairs when criminally negligent actions are merely dismissed as "an accident" and "just doing your job." Higbee lied on camera about running the stop sign (if that isn't a conscious admission of guilt, I don't know what is), and initially was unapologetic, instead hiding behind his badge and blaming his training. Kind of like court-martialling a soldier for following a bad order under the premise, the soldier should have known better than to follow a bad order. I'm pretty sure the official procedure has an underlying premise of safety above all else, especially regarding innocent civilians, in that context Higbee was criminally responsible of grossly bad judgement and should have been found guilty, period (I'm not advocating jail time willy nilly but definitely a conviction). Otherwise we need to get robocops out on the street instead of humans.