TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/122391/1223104.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.0 KB | 126 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 38

PALM BEACH TRIAL

The Case That Was Not Heard


The prosecution had strong evidence against William Smith but
could not use it in court

By CATHY BOOTH/WEST PALM BEACH


    After 10 days of wrenching, confusing and graphic
testimony, it took the six-member jury only 77 minutes to find
William Kennedy Smith not guilty of raping a woman at his
family's Palm Beach estate last Easter weekend. The swift
decision raised questions about the prosecution's case, which
boiled down to pitting the accuser's harrowing tale of being
pinned to the ground and violated against Smith's equally
vehement denials. Many prosecutors would have dropped the case
as unwinnable. Why then did State Attorney David Bludworth and
Moira Lasch, his chief felony attorney, decide to press ahead?

    Smith's lawyer, Roy Black, and some legal experts assert
that Bludworth's motive was to avoid seeming soft on the
Kennedy family. But there was more to it than that. During their
eight-month investigation, the prosecutors became convinced that
the woman was telling the truth about Smith, then a medical
student at Georgetown University. Their problem was proving that
in court.

    After the trial ended, Bludworth insisted, "Based on the
evidence, I would charge ((Smith)) again today. This wasn't date
rape. They had just met. This was a sexual battery, intercourse
without her consent." The police, prosecutors, rape counselors
and the doctors who examined the woman believed her. During the
investigation, she passed two polygraph tests and a voice-stress
analysis. She stuck to her story through five grueling
interrogations by police and prosecutors and an exhausting
three-day deposition by the defense. The bruises on her torso
were consistent with the attack she described. Says Bludworth:
"There was absolutely no question that there was more than
probable cause to file charges."

    Much as Bludworth may deny it, the fact that a Kennedy
family member was involved may have played a role in his
decision to prosecute. Seven years ago, he was accused of
kowtowing to the family by not thoroughly investigating the
drug-overdose death of Robert Kennedy's son David in Palm Beach.
Bludworth, who faces re-election next year, risked renewed
accusations of a cover-up had he declined to move against
another Kennedy.

    His and Lasch's suspicions were further aroused when the
Kennedys gave police investigators what seemed to be a
runaround. William Barry, a former FBI agent who was staying at
the compound, incorrectly told detectives that Senator Edward
Kennedy had left for Washington when in fact he was having lunch
at the Palm Beach estate. For two weeks the family rebuffed
police attempts to survey the grounds where the alleged assault
took place. That was sufficient time for the wind and sea to
obliterate any evidence that might have corroborated the woman's
story. A grand jury may decide this week whether to indict Barry
for obstruction of justice.

    Any doubts Bludworth and Lasch might have harbored about
Smith's guilt seem to have been swept away last summer when
three women came forward to claim that they too had been
sexually attacked by Smith. Each described how an initially
charming Smith had turned violent once they were alone with him
-- eerily mirroring the account of the woman in the Palm Beach
case.

    Presenting the women's stories to a jury was another
matter. Florida bars testimony about a rape defendant's sexual
history unless it shows a striking and detailed similarity to
the crime he is charged with. Moreover, none of the women had
filed charges against Smith. One of Lasch's most controversial
moves was to release the three women's stories, perhaps
mistakenly hoping that prospective jurors would remember them
even if they were not introduced into evidence. Bludworth says
Florida's "sunshine law," which requires that public records be
made available on request, left Lasch with no choice but to make
the stories public -- as well as details of the accuser's sexual
past, which included three abortions and sexual abuse by her
father.

    Defense attorney Black mounted a devastating counterattack
on the women's stories. He argued that the three cases did not
represent a "signature style," and that the only real question
in the Palm Beach case was whether the woman consented or not.
When Judge Mary Lupo ruled that the women could not testify
because Lasch had failed to establish enough parallels between
their stories and the one from Smith's accuser, the
prosecution's case, for all practical purposes, was over.

    Its cause was not helped by Lasch's plodding courtroom
performance. She was clearly despondent after Smith's
boy-next-door performance on the witness stand. He calmly
described accepting the woman's offer of a ride home from Au
Bar, a popular Palm Beach night spot, and then walking with her
along the beach. After exchanging kisses, he testified, the
couple had two sexual encounters -- though the romantic mood was
broken when he mistakenly called her "Cathie." Unable to shake
Smith's story, Lasch resorted to expressions of incredulity that
two people who had met in a notorious pickup joint could be
having sex only a few hours later. "Well, Mr. Smith, what are
you? Some kind of sex machine?" she asked. Some law students are
buying tapes of her four-hour cross-examination of Smith to
learn from her mistakes.

    After his exoneration, Smith celebrated with his family,
then spent the weekend catching up on his tan at the estate.
Meanwhile, his accuser remained in hiding in a vain attempt to
maintain her anonymity. Only hours after the jury read its
verdict, TV technicians on some channels dramatically dissolved
the blurry blob that had hidden her face from viewers while the
trial proceeded. From now on she will be recognizable as the
woman who accused William Kennedy Smith of rape -- and was not
believed.