Word: bulow
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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PROVIDENCE, R.I.--Claus von Bulow said yesterday he agreed to divorce his comatose wife provided his stepchildren dropped their civil suit against him and split their inheritance with his daughter, but the offer was rejected...
...first trial, von Bulow looked as guilty as sin. He had a mistress who wanted him to marry her and was putting pressure on him. He stood to inherit a good bit of money if Sunny died. He appeared to have carried around a black bag with insulin and a variety of drugs in them. Sunny had a low blood sugar problem, and medical experts at the trial testified that an insulin injection definitely caused Sunny's first and second comas...
...Bulow was convicted of trying to kill his wife two times. Then he called in Dershowitz to appeal the verdict to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. With his hot shot team of lawyers and law students, Dershowitz argued that von Bulow's initial trial had been unfair because defense attorneys had not been given access to certain evidence. Dershowitz also argued that the use of a private investigator to uncover evidence for prosecution could imperil people's liberty from unwarranted searches of their private property. He won on the first argument but not on the second...
...Bulow case went to trial for a second time, and Von Bulow was acquitted. The medical experts said that the insulin reading on the syringe could very likely be false, that insulin would not have accumulated on a needle injected into someone, and that the coma could have been naturally induced. And then more evidence vindicating von Bulow--the prescription bottle with his name on it was not necessarily found in his black bag. The insulin theory began to look cooked...
...these stories lack the bite and the spirit that one might expect from such a dramatic situation. We never really get a feel for Sunny or von Bulow or any of the other people who lived out this sad tale. And when we get to the legal arguments, we don't get much of a scholarly analysis of either the appeals process or the real issues. Dershowitz does a fine job telling two stories. But the problem is that we would much rather read a totally trashy novel or a good sociological study or a good legal analysis...