Word: inquest
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...could find that Judge Boyle's ground rules are legally sound. Traditionally in Massachusetts, the very loosely formulated procedures of an inquest are left to the presiding judge, who may or may not exclude the public and press. Precedents on inquests in the state are vague. Only two inquests have been held on Martha's Vineyard in the past 40 years. One, in 1932, concluded that a man named Valdimer Victor Messer evidently sat on a keg of dynamite wired to a battery and dematerialized himself...
...court could find that an inquest is not designed to deal with the extraordinarily publicized Kennedy case and that any action must be left to a grand jury-an inquiry held in secret. District Attorney Dinis, however, would prefer to avoid a grand jury investigation, since he himself would be in charge and the press would be excluded...
...court could rule that the inquest is appropriate, but that it should be conducted in secret...
...justices could agree with Kennedy's lawyers that Boyle's rules are inappropriate and that counsel for one or all of the witnesses should have the privilege of crossexamination, subpoenaing witnesses and so on. Some lawyers regard this as a remote alternative, since the inquest is not a trial...
Some legal experts believe the most likely outcome is that the inquest will be canceled-leaving Dinis the option of calling a grand jury-or that it will be held in secret to protect the rights of Kennedy and the other witnesses. In either case, the public, which is presumably a court to which every politician must appeal, would be denied an open and formal explanation. Kennedy might have gone ahead with the Edgartown inquest, risking rumors on the record in order to account for his conduct clearly once and for all. Now he has for a time formalized...