Kerry Kennedy Is Found Not Guilty of Driving While Impaired
By Joseph Berger, The New York Times, Feb. 28, 2014
WHITE PLAINS — After nearly 20 months of buildup, the misdemeanor trial of Kerry Kennedy ended on Friday in a breakneck blur, as jurors took less than two hours to find her not guilty of driving under the influence of a drug. The four-day trial, which featured a riveting turn on the witness stand by Ms. Kennedy, 54, was centered on an act that neither she nor prosecutors dispute: On July 13, 2012, she drove her Lexus S.U.V. erratically after swallowing Zolpidem, a generic form of the sleep medication Ambien. She sideswiped a tractor-trailer on a highway in Westchester County before she was found, slumped over her steering wheel, her car stalled on a local road.
Ms. Kennedy has maintained that she took the pill accidentally, mistaking it for medication she took for a thyroid condition. She testified on Wednesday that she did not realize her mistake until well after the accident.
At issue was whether Ms. Kennedy, the former wife of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, should have been aware that she was feeling the drug’s soporific effects, was swerving and driving erratically, and stopped the car.
The case which was given to the jury late Thursday afternoon, attracted so much attention that the county had to shift locations to one of its largest courtrooms in Westchester County Courthouse, from its original venue, the North Castle Town Court. Yet all this fuss and stir was over a misdemeanor, for a crime with scarcely a victim.
One of Ms. Kennedy’s lawyers, Gerald B. Lefcourt, in his closing argument on Thursday, contended that the jury had “not heard any evidence from the prosecutor, who has the burden of proof that Kerry Kennedy did realize she accidentally took the sleeping pill Zolpidem and continued to drive.”
“This is a case with not a reasonable doubt — there is overwhelming doubt,” Mr. Lefcourt said.
To convict Ms. Kennedy, he concluded, the jury would have to believe that “she’s a callous person and knowing she was under the influence of Zolpidem and continued to drive.”
The fact that Ms. Kennedy was tried before a jury was unusual. Although there are 2,500 cases brought every year in Westchester County for driving under the influence of either alcohol or drugs, they are typically bargained down to a noncriminal violation requiring a guilty plea and a fine. Ms. Kennedy’s lawyers believe a misdemeanor charge would not have been brought at all were she not a Kennedy. Prosecutors with the district attorney’s office believe they should show Ms. Kennedy no favor just because she comes from a prominent family.
She had faced up to a year in jail if convicted.
Commentary
This is what every defendant fears: that someone in authority will make a ridiculous decision. It is why it is more than reasonable to fear—yes fear—power. A woman who has never done a criminal thing in her life and is known for helping people states that she took a sleeping pill known for unconscious activity (driving, cooking, eating, walking) while on it, is prosecuted for driving under the influence, and no one, not just the trial prosecutor but his supervisor and his supervisor did not stop this insanity. Not hard to believe. It can happen. And it can happen to you.
You know I recall a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who had the case of governor Eliot Spitzer. He investigated it thoroughly and decided not to present the case. He could easily have done so thinking it could help him or as in the Kennedy case above, go out of his way to show that the rich and famous were not given special treatment. Instead he did the right thing. Examined it as he would any other case and dismissed it when the investigation proved that no crime was committed. That’s the way you hope cases would be decided and in most cases they are. But there is always that one that isn’t.
– David Zapp, Esq.