Word: inquest
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What will the inquest, due to begin this week at Edgartown, do to make sense of that bizarre and tragic night? The answer will obviously depend upon the candor and character of those who attended the cookout, including Kennedy, and upon the acuity of the questions raised by District Attorney Edmund Dinis. It will also rest significantly upon how far the presiding judge, James A. Boyle, permits Dinis to range in exploring not only the immediate circumstances of the accident but also the actions and omissions of Kennedy and his friends afterward. Last week Boyle indicated that he would allow...
Here is a succinct guide to the characters, other than Kennedy himself, who are most likely to play leading roles in the inquest...
...that he thought he could remain superior court clerk even after his appointment to the District Court. Yet he is generally regarded as a fair jurist who conducts court business in open court, shunning closed-door conferences. His brusque conduct at last week's pre-inquest hearings suggested that he hopes and intends to preserve the decorum of a procedure that, as he knows, could dissolve into a constitutional morass...
Although his performance early in the case was erratic and ill-formed, Dinis promises an aggressive pursuit at the inquest. He has some lapses to make up. It was he who agreed that an autopsy did not seem necessary immediately after the accident, permitted Mary Jo's body to be shipped to Pennsylvania and, many believe, avoided involvement in the matter until he belatedly saw an opportunity to make political capital out of it. In 1948, Dinis, a Democrat, replaced his late father, an immigrant Portuguese furniture maker, in the Massachusetts state legislature. Ten years ago he became...
...week, Kennedy seemed freshly determined to try to re-establish a normal senatorial routine. In one of his rare post-Chappaquiddick appearances, he and his son attended the "Northeast Special Olympics" for mentally retarded children in Boston. With the coming of the inquest into Mary Jo Kopechne's death, however, Teddy Kennedy's private anguish is bound to intensify. It, as much as anything that the inquest produces, must be counted as a major factor in Kennedy's future...