This is definitely a sticky issue.

1 - I wouldn't want a picture of my corpse on TV.

2 - Perhaps if showing a picture of my corpse on TV made a difference towards positive change, I'd be ok with it.

3 - If I were dead I wouldn't be able to opine on it and may resent my picture being shown.

4 - Most importantly, I do not believe that the powers that be that stopped those pictures from being taken were thinking of privacy or respect for the dead. I believe they were thinking about how bad they would look when those pics got out.

But I think the only real legal (as opposed to moral or ethical) stickiness probably has to do with the survivors, not the dead person. You might not like it, but in US law, there's no such thing as 'slander' or 'libel' with regards to a dead person, for example.

Here's another reason... and really, the same reason that names of the dead are not released on tv before the family is notified:
The police generally like to do the notification to immediate family members in case news of the death is so shocking that someone needs to be there to help them deal with it.

So for example, little Grandmere Thibodeaux is walking past a tv in the shelter at the Astrodome, not knowing where her daughter and grandkids are, then happens to glance up at the moment the tv news displays the gruesome image of her daughter's rotting, bloated corpse. Little Grandmere Thibodeaux is so shocked, she collapses, bonking her head on the cold cement floor. Now two people are dead.

On the other hand, it could be some months before someone processes the dead properly (by which time little GT will probably suspect something, but not be smacked upside the head with it), and a police office comes to little GT, asks her to sit down, then delivers the news. Much better, no?

Yes, but the dead still have copyright (or their trustees do anyway)

Well, the photographer would have the copyright - not the subject.

Its a little hard to slander or libel a dead person if you are calling them dead, its not a misrepresentation of them, for they are in fact, dead.

So what's the deal with model releases? Are they just a curtesy?

Well, not "just a courtesy", but clearly not always necessary either. There's more gray than black and white in the case of model releases. Do paparazzis who lurk in the bushes outside of restaurants require model release forms before they can sell pictures to the Enquirer for publication? Do any of us get model release forms from the people we photograph at theme parks before we post them to the web - although we know that a third-party company makes a profit every time those pictures are downloaded?

Here's a decent web page addressing the question.

But as far as copyright goes - it's the photographer, not the subject.

The photographer does own the copyright, always will(unless they have some contract with someone that expressly gives the other person or entity the copyright). Model releases are necessary to cover the photographer from lawsuits pertaining to the use of the image of a person, its basically a way for the photographer to cover their arse in case the subject of the image decides they don't want their image to be published. The photograper can argue in court that they have a release signed by the model.

The paparazzies generally shoot in public area's, out in the street and use teh guise of "journalism" to make it unneccessary for model releases. Even teh shots of "celebrities" in private places are generally shot from a public location to allow them to keep this blanket of "journalism" intact.

Just my thoughts on the subject, none have been researched at teh time of posting, but were researched at an earlier date and were pulled from my memory for teh purposes of posting. Some inaccuracies may be included in this posting due to memory lapse.

Yes, the photographer has a lot of rights if they are in a public place and the subject is in view.

This is kind of a tangent, but it highlights how the subject has little rights. There was a case a few years back of a couple that was successfully convicted for corruption of a minor. Why? Well, for some reason (I don't remember the full setup, something about she had seen the couple having sex through their window and wanted to teach her son and them a lesson or some such rot) while the couple was having sex in their own bedroom with the door mostly closed, she brough her son to a place in their yard where they could see them through the window and in their bathroom mirror and proceeded to film them. And instead of this weirdo being convicted of invasion of privacy, this couple was given community service for having sex in their own bedroom.

So yeah, if the photographer is in a public place, they've got the rights.