Word: jo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week, 17 hours before the inquest In Re: Mary Jo Kopechne was to begin on Martha's Vineyard, the state's highest court intervened, delaying the proceeding for at least several weeks and temporarily awarding Edward M. Kennedy a legal victory. Justice Paul Reardon ordered a postponement until the full seven-member supreme court, now in recess, could hear arguments on whether an inquest governed by Judge Boyle's ground rules would be a violation of Kennedy's constitutional rights...
...death of Mary Jo Kopechne has already become one of the most controversial fatal accidents in the history of the U.S. Last week, as the date of an inquest demanded by Massachusetts District Attorney Edmund Dinis approached, it stirred even more controversy. Disturbed by all the publicity, attorneys for Edward Kennedy appeared before Judge James Boyle in Edgartown to insist that the judge grant their client the rights of a defendant in a criminal trial. The judge refused, pointing out that inquests are not trials but investigations to determine the cause of death and to discover whether any criminal...
...hesitated to do so, apparently wary of giving the impression that the Senator has something to hide. As for Dinis, he seems determined to go ahead with the inquest, even though he has so far had no success in persuading a Pennsylvania court to order an autopsy on Mary Jo's body...
Double Jeopardy? Conceivably, the inquest could disclose evidence of criminal negligence in Mary Jo's death. After Judge Boyle files his report, Dinis might go to a grand jury. If Kennedy is ever indicted, it will be difficult to find a juror who has not been "prejudiced" by something he heard on TV or read in the newspapers about the inquest. On the other hand, there already has been considerable publicity of this kind. If his lawyers do not obtain an injunction, Kennedy could invoke the Fifth Amendment at the inquest and avoid giving answers, but he is unlikely...
Touching First Base. At a court hearing in Wilkes-Barre last week, Dinis did not specify what he expected to learn from an autopsy on Mary Jo's body. His associate, Assistant D.A. Armand Fernandes Jr., argued that to hold an inquest without an autopsy would be "like hitting a home run without touching first base." If an autopsy had been ordered soon after the accident, it might have determined such facts as what time Miss Kopechne died and whether she had suffered a concussion that prevented her from trying to get out of the car. The Edgartown medical...