Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident
Encyclopedia
The term "Chappaquiddick incident" refers to the circumstances involving the death of Mary Jo Kopechne
, whose body was discovered underwater inside an automobile belonging to her driver, U.S. Senator Edward M. ("Ted") Kennedy
. During the early morning hours of July 19, 1969, Kopechne's body and the car were found in a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island
, Massachusetts
. After the discovery, Kennedy gave a statement to police saying that during the previous night Kopechne was his passenger when he took a wrong turn and accidentally drove his car off a bridge into the water. After pleading guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury, Kennedy received a suspended sentence for two months in jail. The incident became a national scandal, and may have influenced Kennedy's decision not to campaign for President of the United States
in 1972
and 1976
.
gave a party on Chappaquiddick, a small island connected via ferry to the town of Edgartown
on the nearby larger island of Martha's Vineyard
. The party was a reunion for a group of six women, including Kopechne, known as the "boiler-room girls
", who had served in his brother Robert's
1968 presidential campaign. Also present were Joseph Gargan
, Ted Kennedy's cousin; Paul F. Markham
, a school friend of Gargan's who previously served as the United States Attorney for Massachusetts; Charles Tretter, an attorney; Raymond La Rosa; and John Crimmins, Ted Kennedy's part-time driver. Kennedy was also competing in the Edgartown Yacht Club
Regatta, a sailing competition which was taking place over several days.
According to his own testimony at the inquest into Kopechne's death, Kennedy left the party at "approximately 11:15 p.m." He said that when he announced that he was about to leave, Kopechne told him "that she was desirous of leaving, if I would be kind enough to drop her back at her hotel." Kennedy then requested the keys to his mother's car from his chauffeur, Crimmins. Asked why he did not have his chauffeur drive them both, Kennedy explained that Crimmins along with some other guests "were concluding their meal, enjoying the fellowship and it didn't appear to me necessary to require him to bring me back to Edgartown". Kopechne told no one that she was leaving with Kennedy, and left her purse and hotel key at the party.
boat, got into his parked car and drove toward his home, which was south of the Dike Bridge. He testified that between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m. he had seen a dark car containing a man driving and a woman in the front seat approaching the intersection with Dike Road. The car had gone first onto the private Cemetery Road and stopped there. Thinking that the occupants of the car might be lost, Look had gotten out of his car and walked toward it. When he was 25 to 30 feet away, the car started backing towards him. When Look called out to offer his help, the car moved quickly eastward, towards the ocean, along Dike Road in a cloud of dust. Look recalled that the car's license plate began with an "L" and contained two "7"'s, both details true of Kennedy's 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88.
According to his inquest testimony, Kennedy made a wrong turn onto Dike Road, an unlit dirt road that led to Dike Bridge (also spelled Dyke Bridge). Dike Road was unpaved, but Kennedy, driving at "approximately twenty miles an hour", took "no particular notice" of this fact, and did not realize that he was no longer headed toward the ferry landing. Dike Bridge was a wooden bridge angled obliquely to the road, with no guardrail. A fraction of a second before he reached the bridge, Kennedy applied his brakes; he then drove over the side of the bridge. The car plunged into tide-swept Poucha Pond (at that location a channel) and came to rest upside-down underwater. Kennedy recalled later that he was able to swim free of the vehicle, but Kopechne was not. Kennedy claimed at the inquest that he called Kopechne's name several times from the shore, then tried to swim down to reach her seven or eight times, then rested on the bank for around fifteen minutes before returning on foot to Lawrence Cottage, where the party attended by Kopechne and other "Boiler Room Girls" had occurred. Kennedy denied seeing any house with a light on during his journey back to Lawrence Cottage.
In addition to the working telephone at the Lawrence Cottage, according to one commentator, his route back to the cottage would have taken him past four houses from which he could have telephoned and summoned help; however, he did not do so. The first of those houses, referred to as "Dike House", was 150 yards away from the bridge, and was occupied by Sylvia Malm and her family at the time of the incident. Malm stated later that she had left a light on at the residence when she retired for that evening.
According to Kennedy's testimony, Gargan and party co-host Paul Markham then returned to the waterway with Kennedy to try to rescue Kopechne. Both of the other men also tried to dive into the water and rescue Kopechne multiple times. When their efforts to rescue Kopechne failed, Kennedy testified, Gargan and Markham drove with Kennedy to the ferry landing, both insisting multiple times that the accident had to be reported to the authorities. According to Markham's testimony Kennedy was sobbing and on the verge of becoming crazed. Kennedy went on to testify that "[I] had full intention of reporting it. And I mentioned to Gargan and Markham something like, 'You take care of the other girls; I will take care of the accident!'—that is what I said and I dove into the water". Kennedy had already told Gargan and Markham not to tell the other women anything about the incident "[b]ecause I felt strongly that if these girls were notified that an accident had taken place and Mary Jo had, in fact, drowned, that it would only be a matter of seconds before all of those girls, who were long and dear friends of Mary Jo's, would go to the scene of the accident and enter the water with, I felt, a good chance that some serious mishap might have occurred to any one of them". Gargan and Markam would testify that they assumed that Kennedy was going to inform the authorities once he got back to Edgartown, and thus did not do so themselves.
According to his own testimony, Kennedy swam across the 500-foot channel, back to Edgartown
and returned to his hotel room, where he removed his clothes and collapsed on his bed. Hearing noises, he later put on dry clothes and asked someone what the time was: it was something like 2:30 a.m., the senator recalled. He testified that, as the night went on, "I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room ... I had not given up hope all night long that, by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car."
Back at his hotel, Kennedy complained at 2:55 a.m. to the hotel owner that he had been awoken by a noisy party. By 7:30 a.m. the next morning he was talking "casually" to the winner of the previous day's sailing race, with no indication that anything was amiss. At 8 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a "heated conversation." According to Kennedy's testimony, the two men asked why he had not reported the accident. Kennedy responded by telling them "about my own thoughts and feelings as I swam across that channel ... that somehow when they arrived in the morning that they were going to say that Mary Jo was still alive". The three men subsequently crossed back to Chappaquiddick Island on the ferry, where Kennedy made a series of telephone calls from a pay telephone near the crossing. The telephone calls were to his friends for advice and again, he did not report the accident to authorities.
Edgartown Police Chief James Arena arrived at the scene about 10 or 15 minutes later. After attempting unsuccessfully to examine the interior of the submerged vehicle, Arena summoned a professional diver, along with towing / winch capability. The diver, John Farrar, arrived at 8:45 fully suited in scuba gear, discovered Kopechne's body and extricated it from the vehicle within ten minutes. Police checked the car's license plate and saw that it was registered to Kennedy. When Kennedy, still at the payphone by the ferry crossing, heard that the body had been discovered, he crossed back to Edgartown and went to the police station; Gargan simultaneously went to the hotel where the "boiler room girls" were staying to inform them about the incident.
At 10 am Kennedy entered the police station in Edgartown, made a couple of telephone calls, then dictated a statement to his aide Paul Markham, which was then given to the police. The statement was as follows:
, and the prosecutors agreed to this, citing Kennedy's age, character and prior reputation. Judge James Boyle sentenced Kennedy to two months' incarceration, the statutory minimum for the offense, which he suspended. In announcing the sentence, Boyle referred to Kennedy's "unblemished record" and said that he "has already been, and will continue to be punished far beyond anything this court can impose".
Kennedy then asked the people of Massachusetts to decide whether he should resign:
He concluded by quoting a passage from his brother John
's book Profiles in Courage
.
was apparent and her hands were clasping the backseat and her face was turned upward. Farrar testified at the Inquest:
Farrar testified later at the inquest that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived in the air bubble after the accident, and concluded that Farrar believed that Kopechne "lived for at least two hours down there."
The medical examiner, Dr. Donald Mills, was satisfied that the cause of death was accidental drowning. The body wore a blouse, bra, and slacks, but no panties. He signed a death certificate to that effect and released Kopechne's body to her family without ordering an autopsy. Later, on September 18, District Attorney Edmund Dinis
attempted to secure an exhumation of Kopechne's body in order to perform a belated autopsy, citing blood found on Kopechne's long-sleeved blouse and in her mouth and nose "which may or may not be consistent with death by drowning". The reported discovery of the blood was made when her clothes were given to authorities by the funeral director.
Judge Bernard Brominski, of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, had a hearing on the request on October 20–21. The request was opposed by Kopechne's parents. Eventually Judge Brominski ruled against the exhumation on December 10, saying that there was "no evidence" that "anything other than drowning had caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne".
ordered that it be performed secretly. The 763-page transcript of the inquest was released four months later. Judge James A. Boyle presided at the inquest. Among Judge Boyle's conclusions in his inquest report were the following:
Under Massachusetts law Boyle, having found "probable cause" that Kennedy had committed a crime, could have issued a warrant for his arrest, but he did not do so. District Attorney Dinis chose not to prosecute Kennedy for manslaughter
, despite Judge Boyle's conclusions.
The Kopechne family did not bring any legal action against Senator Kennedy, but they did receive a payment of $90,904 from the Senator personally and $50,000 from his insurance company. The Kopechnes later explained their decision to not take legal action by saying that "We figured that people would think we were looking for blood money
."
grand jury
assembled in special session to consider Kopechne's death. Judge Wilfred Paquet instructed the members of the grand jury that they could consider only those matters brought to their attention by the superior court, the district attorney or their own personal knowledge. Citing the orders of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Paquet told the grand jury that it could not see the evidence or Judge Boyle's report from the inquest (which at that time were still impounded). District Attorney Dinis, who had attended the inquest and seen Judge Boyle's report, told the grand jury that there was not enough evidence to indict Senator Kennedy on potential charges of manslaughter
, perjury
or driving to endanger. The grand jury called four witnesses who had not testified at the inquest: they testified for a total of 20 minutes, but no indictments were issued.
hearing was held May 18, 1970. It found that "operation was too fast for existing conditions". On May 27 the Registrar informed Sen. Kennedy in a letter that "I am unable to find that the fatal accident in which a motor vehicle operated by you was involved, was without serious fault on your part", and that as a result, his driver's license was suspended for a further six months.
was pregnant at the time of the incident. Though confined to bed due to two previous miscarriages, she attended the funeral of Kopechne and stood beside her husband in court three days later. She suffered a third miscarriage soon thereafter which she blamed on the Chappaquiddick incident.
1) Kennedy was set up and framed by his political enemies for a crime he did not commit.
2) Kennedy attempted to divert the blame to others.
3) Kennedy conspired to cover up an earlier crime by staging an "accident".
A BBC 'Inside Story' programme, 'Chappaquiddick', broadcast on the 25th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne advanced a theory that Kennedy and Kopechne had gone out from the party in Kennedy's car, but that when Kennedy saw an off-duty policeman in his patrol car, he got out of the car, fearing the political consequences of being discovered by the police late at night with an attractive woman. According to the theory, Kennedy then returned to the party while Kopechne, unfamiliar both with the large car and the local area, drove the wrong way and crashed off the bridge. The programme argued this explanation would account for Kennedy's lack of concern the next morning (because he was unaware of the crash) and for forensic evidence of the injuries to Kopechne being inconsistent with her sitting in the passenger seat. A similar theory was advanced by Australian writer Bob Ellis
.
Best-selling investigative writer Jack Olsen
had earlier advanced a similar theory in his book The Bridge at Chappaquiddick, published early during 1970. Olsen's book was the first full-length examination of the case. Olsen wrote that Kopechne's shorter height (she was 5'2", a foot shorter than Kennedy) could have accounted for her possibly not even seeing the bridge as she drove Kennedy's car over unfamiliar roads, at night, with no external lighting, after having had several alcoholic drinks at the party both had attended. Olsen wrote that Kopechne normally drove a smaller Volkswagen
model car, which was much lighter and easier to handle than Kennedy's larger Oldsmobile
.
The case resulted in much satire
of Kennedy, including a mock advertisement in National Lampoon magazine showing a floating Volkswagen Beetle
with the remark that Kennedy would have been elected president had he been driving a Beetle that night; this satire resulted in legal action by Volkswagen
, claiming unauthorized use of its trademark. National Lampoon also printed a fake quote from Kennedy, as a "response" to a question on whether he planned to campaign for President in the next election: "I'll drive off that bridge when I come to it."
After Kennedy's televised speech on July 25, 1969, regarding the incident, telephone calls and telegrams to newspapers and to the Kennedy family were heavily in favor of his remaining in office, and he won reelection the next year
with 62% of the vote. Nonetheless, the incident severely damaged his national reputation. Before Chappaquiddick, public polls showed that a large majority expected Kennedy to run for the presidency in 1972. After the incident, he pledged not to run in 1972 and declined to serve as George McGovern
's running mate that year. In 1974, he pledged not to run in 1976, in part because of the renewed media interest in Chappaquiddick.
Kennedy finally announced his candidacy for the American presidency in late 1979, challenging incumbent President Jimmy Carter
for the Democratic nomination for the 1980 election
. On November 4, 1979, CBS broadcast a one-hour television special presented by Roger Mudd titled Teddy. The program consisted of an interview with Kennedy, interspersed with visual materials. Much of the show was devoted to the Chappaquiddick incident. During the interview, Mudd questioned Kennedy repeatedly about the incident and at one point accused him directly of lying. During the interview, Kennedy also gave an "incoherent and repetitive" answer to the question, "Why do you want to be President?", and by calling the American-supported Shah of Iran
"one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind". The program inflicted serious political damage on Kennedy. Carter alluded to the Chappaquiddick incident twice in five days, once declaring that he had not "panicked in the crisis." Kennedy lost the Democratic nomination to Carter, but remained a Senator until his death in 2009.
After Kennedy's death, Ed Klein, an editor for New York Times Magazine and an author of several books about the Kennedy family, stated that Kennedy asked people he met, "Have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?" Klein also said, "It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too."
Mary Jo Kopechne
Mary Jo Kopechne was an American teacher, secretary, and political campaign specialist who died in a car accident in Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts on July 18, 1969, while a passenger in a car being driven by U.S. Senator Edward M...
, whose body was discovered underwater inside an automobile belonging to her driver, U.S. Senator Edward M. ("Ted") Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
. During the early morning hours of July 19, 1969, Kopechne's body and the car were found in a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island
Chappaquiddick Island
Chappaquiddick Island is a small island off the eastern end of the larger island of Martha's Vineyard and is part of the town of Edgartown, Massachusetts. The island's name became internationally recognized following the July 18, 1969 incident, for which U.S. Senator Edward M...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. After the discovery, Kennedy gave a statement to police saying that during the previous night Kopechne was his passenger when he took a wrong turn and accidentally drove his car off a bridge into the water. After pleading guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury, Kennedy received a suspended sentence for two months in jail. The incident became a national scandal, and may have influenced Kennedy's decision not to campaign for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in 1972
United States presidential election, 1972
The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...
and 1976
United States presidential election, 1976
The United States presidential election of 1976 followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It pitted incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate, against the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic...
.
The party
On July 18, 1969, Ted KennedyTed Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
gave a party on Chappaquiddick, a small island connected via ferry to the town of Edgartown
Edgartown, Massachusetts
Edgartown is a town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,779 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Dukes County. Edgartown has the largest population and area in the entire Dukes County and Martha's Vineyard.- History :In 1642....
on the nearby larger island of Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard is an island located south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, known for being an affluent summer colony....
. The party was a reunion for a group of six women, including Kopechne, known as the "boiler-room girls
Boiler Room Girls
The "Boiler Room Girls" were the female members of Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign staff. While an American political campaign often makes calls from a phone bank that has much in common with a marketing boiler room, this group actually had desks in space designed as a...
", who had served in his brother Robert's
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
1968 presidential campaign. Also present were Joseph Gargan
Joseph Gargan
Joseph "Joe" Gargan is an American lawyer.Together with two younger sisters, he was raised by Rose Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. after the 1936 death of his mother, Mary Agnes . His father was Joseph F. Gargan. He and his two sisters are first cousins of the Kennedy family...
, Ted Kennedy's cousin; Paul F. Markham
Paul F. Markham
Paul F. Markham is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1966 to 1969.-Early life:...
, a school friend of Gargan's who previously served as the United States Attorney for Massachusetts; Charles Tretter, an attorney; Raymond La Rosa; and John Crimmins, Ted Kennedy's part-time driver. Kennedy was also competing in the Edgartown Yacht Club
Edgartown Yacht Club
-The Edgartown Yacht Club:The Edgartown Yacht Club is a private yacht club located in Edgartown, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard. The club was founded on January 5, 1905, and Edward H. Raymond was named its first commodore...
Regatta, a sailing competition which was taking place over several days.
According to his own testimony at the inquest into Kopechne's death, Kennedy left the party at "approximately 11:15 p.m." He said that when he announced that he was about to leave, Kopechne told him "that she was desirous of leaving, if I would be kind enough to drop her back at her hotel." Kennedy then requested the keys to his mother's car from his chauffeur, Crimmins. Asked why he did not have his chauffeur drive them both, Kennedy explained that Crimmins along with some other guests "were concluding their meal, enjoying the fellowship and it didn't appear to me necessary to require him to bring me back to Edgartown". Kopechne told no one that she was leaving with Kennedy, and left her purse and hotel key at the party.
After the party
Christopher "Huck" Look was a deputy sheriff working as a special police officer at the Edgartown regatta dance that night. At 12:30 a.m. he left the dance, crossed over to Chappaquiddick in the yacht club's launchLaunch (boat)
A launch in contemporary usage refers to a large motorboat. The name originally referred to the largest boat carried by a warship. The etymology of the word is given as Portuguese lancha "barge", from Malay lancha, lancharan, "boat," from lanchar "velocity without effort," "action of gliding...
boat, got into his parked car and drove toward his home, which was south of the Dike Bridge. He testified that between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m. he had seen a dark car containing a man driving and a woman in the front seat approaching the intersection with Dike Road. The car had gone first onto the private Cemetery Road and stopped there. Thinking that the occupants of the car might be lost, Look had gotten out of his car and walked toward it. When he was 25 to 30 feet away, the car started backing towards him. When Look called out to offer his help, the car moved quickly eastward, towards the ocean, along Dike Road in a cloud of dust. Look recalled that the car's license plate began with an "L" and contained two "7"'s, both details true of Kennedy's 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88.
According to Kennedy's testimony, Gargan and party co-host Paul Markham then returned to the waterway with Kennedy to try to rescue Kopechne. Both of the other men also tried to dive into the water and rescue Kopechne multiple times. When their efforts to rescue Kopechne failed, Kennedy testified, Gargan and Markham drove with Kennedy to the ferry landing, both insisting multiple times that the accident had to be reported to the authorities. According to Markham's testimony Kennedy was sobbing and on the verge of becoming crazed. Kennedy went on to testify that "[I] had full intention of reporting it. And I mentioned to Gargan and Markham something like, 'You take care of the other girls; I will take care of the accident!'—that is what I said and I dove into the water". Kennedy had already told Gargan and Markham not to tell the other women anything about the incident "[b]ecause I felt strongly that if these girls were notified that an accident had taken place and Mary Jo had, in fact, drowned, that it would only be a matter of seconds before all of those girls, who were long and dear friends of Mary Jo's, would go to the scene of the accident and enter the water with, I felt, a good chance that some serious mishap might have occurred to any one of them". Gargan and Markam would testify that they assumed that Kennedy was going to inform the authorities once he got back to Edgartown, and thus did not do so themselves.
According to his own testimony, Kennedy swam across the 500-foot channel, back to Edgartown
Edgartown, Massachusetts
Edgartown is a town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,779 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Dukes County. Edgartown has the largest population and area in the entire Dukes County and Martha's Vineyard.- History :In 1642....
and returned to his hotel room, where he removed his clothes and collapsed on his bed. Hearing noises, he later put on dry clothes and asked someone what the time was: it was something like 2:30 a.m., the senator recalled. He testified that, as the night went on, "I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room ... I had not given up hope all night long that, by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car."
Back at his hotel, Kennedy complained at 2:55 a.m. to the hotel owner that he had been awoken by a noisy party. By 7:30 a.m. the next morning he was talking "casually" to the winner of the previous day's sailing race, with no indication that anything was amiss. At 8 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a "heated conversation." According to Kennedy's testimony, the two men asked why he had not reported the accident. Kennedy responded by telling them "about my own thoughts and feelings as I swam across that channel ... that somehow when they arrived in the morning that they were going to say that Mary Jo was still alive". The three men subsequently crossed back to Chappaquiddick Island on the ferry, where Kennedy made a series of telephone calls from a pay telephone near the crossing. The telephone calls were to his friends for advice and again, he did not report the accident to authorities.
Recovery of Kopechne's body and Kennedy's statement
Earlier that morning, two amateur fishermen had seen the submerged car in the water and notified the inhabitants of the cottage nearest to the scene, who called the authorities at about 8:20 a.m.Edgartown Police Chief James Arena arrived at the scene about 10 or 15 minutes later. After attempting unsuccessfully to examine the interior of the submerged vehicle, Arena summoned a professional diver, along with towing / winch capability. The diver, John Farrar, arrived at 8:45 fully suited in scuba gear, discovered Kopechne's body and extricated it from the vehicle within ten minutes. Police checked the car's license plate and saw that it was registered to Kennedy. When Kennedy, still at the payphone by the ferry crossing, heard that the body had been discovered, he crossed back to Edgartown and went to the police station; Gargan simultaneously went to the hotel where the "boiler room girls" were staying to inform them about the incident.
At 10 am Kennedy entered the police station in Edgartown, made a couple of telephone calls, then dictated a statement to his aide Paul Markham, which was then given to the police. The statement was as follows:
Legal proceedings
On July 25, seven days after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. Kennedy's attorneys suggested that any jail sentence should be suspendedSuspended sentence
A suspended sentence is a legal term for a judge's delaying of a defendant's serving of a sentence after they have been found guilty, in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation...
, and the prosecutors agreed to this, citing Kennedy's age, character and prior reputation. Judge James Boyle sentenced Kennedy to two months' incarceration, the statutory minimum for the offense, which he suspended. In announcing the sentence, Boyle referred to Kennedy's "unblemished record" and said that he "has already been, and will continue to be punished far beyond anything this court can impose".
Kennedy's televised statement
At 7:30 p.m. that evening Kennedy made a lengthy prepared statement about the incident which was broadcast live by the television networks. Among other things, he said that:- "Only reasons of health" had prevented his wife from accompanying him to the regatta.
- There was "no truth whatever to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct" regarding Kennedy's and Kopechne's behavior that evening.
- He "was not driving under the influence of liquor".
- His conduct during the hours immediately after the accident "made no sense to [him] at all".
- His doctors had informed him that he had suffered cerebral concussionHead injuryHead injury refers to trauma of the head. This may or may not include injury to the brain. However, the terms traumatic brain injury and head injury are often used interchangeably in medical literature....
and shock, but he did not seek to use his medical condition to escape responsibility for his actions. - He "regard[ed] as indefensible that fact that [he] did not report the accident to the police immediately."
- Instead of notifying the authorities immediately, Kennedy "requested the help of two friends, Joe Gargan and Paul Markham, and directed them to return immediately to the scene with [him] (it then being sometime after midnight) in order to undertake a new effort to dive down and locate Miss Kopechne".
- "All kinds of scrambled thoughts" went through his mind after the accident, including "whether the girl might still be alive somewhere out of that immediate area," "whether some awful curse actually did hang over all the KennedysKennedy CurseThe Kennedy tragedies, colloquially called the Kennedy Curse, is a term sometimes used to describe a series of tragedies involving members of the Kennedy family. Many of the tragedies have been caused by preventable reckless choices like driving drunk, piloting an airplane under unsafe conditions,...
", "whether there was some justifiable reason for [him] to doubt what had happened and to delay [his] report", and "whether somehow the awful weight of this incredible incident might in some way pass from [his] shoulders". - He was overcome "by a jumble of emotions—grief, fear, doubt, exhaustion, panic, confusion and shock".
- Having instructed Gargan and Markham "not to alarm Mary Jo's friends that night", Kennedy returned to the ferry with the two men, and then "suddenly jumped into the water and impulsively swam across, nearly drowning once again in the effort, returning to [his] hotel around 2 a.m. and collapsed in [his] room".
Kennedy then asked the people of Massachusetts to decide whether he should resign:
He concluded by quoting a passage from his brother John
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's book Profiles in Courage
Profiles in Courage
Profiles in Courage is a 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators throughout the Senate's history. The book profiles senators who crossed party lines and/or defied the public opinion of their constituents to do what they felt was...
.
Farrar's testimony and Kopechne's cause of death
John Farrar, the diver who recovered Kopechne's body and captain of the Edgartown Fire Rescue unit, asserted that Kopechne did not die from the vehicle overturn or from drowning, but rather from suffocation, based upon the posture in which he found the body and its position relative to the area of an ultimate air pocket in the overturned vehicle. Farrar also asserted that Kopechne would likely have survived had a more timely attempt at rescue been conducted. Farrar located Kopechne's body in the well of the backseat of the overturned submerged car. Rigor mortisRigor mortis
Rigor mortis is one of the recognizable signs of death that is caused by a chemical change in the muscles after death, causing the limbs of the corpse to become stiff and difficult to move or manipulate...
was apparent and her hands were clasping the backseat and her face was turned upward. Farrar testified at the Inquest:
Farrar testified later at the inquest that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived in the air bubble after the accident, and concluded that Farrar believed that Kopechne "lived for at least two hours down there."
The medical examiner, Dr. Donald Mills, was satisfied that the cause of death was accidental drowning. The body wore a blouse, bra, and slacks, but no panties. He signed a death certificate to that effect and released Kopechne's body to her family without ordering an autopsy. Later, on September 18, District Attorney Edmund Dinis
Edmund Dinis
Edmund Dinis was an American prosecutor and politician from Massachusetts.Dinis prosecuted the Chappaquiddick incident involving Senator Ted Kennedy. Prior to becoming a prosecutor, Dinis served on the New Bedford, Massachusetts city council and both houses of the Massachusetts General Court.-Notes:...
attempted to secure an exhumation of Kopechne's body in order to perform a belated autopsy, citing blood found on Kopechne's long-sleeved blouse and in her mouth and nose "which may or may not be consistent with death by drowning". The reported discovery of the blood was made when her clothes were given to authorities by the funeral director.
Judge Bernard Brominski, of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, had a hearing on the request on October 20–21. The request was opposed by Kopechne's parents. Eventually Judge Brominski ruled against the exhumation on December 10, saying that there was "no evidence" that "anything other than drowning had caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne".
Inquest
The inquest into Kopechne's death occurred in Edgartown in January 1970. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The SJC has the distinction of being the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the Western Hemisphere.-History:...
ordered that it be performed secretly. The 763-page transcript of the inquest was released four months later. Judge James A. Boyle presided at the inquest. Among Judge Boyle's conclusions in his inquest report were the following:
- The accident occurred "between 11:30 p.m. on July 18 and 1:00 a.m. on July 19".
- "Kopechne and Kennedy did not intend to drive to the ferry slip and his turn onto Dike Road had been intentional".
- "A speed of twenty miles per hour as Kennedy testified to operating the car as large as his Oldsmobile would be at least negligent and possibly reckless."
- "For some reason not apparent from [Kennedy]'s testimony, he failed to exercise due care as he approached the bridge."
- "There is probable cause to believe that Edward M. Kennedy operated his motor vehicle negligently ... and that such operation appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne."
Under Massachusetts law Boyle, having found "probable cause" that Kennedy had committed a crime, could have issued a warrant for his arrest, but he did not do so. District Attorney Dinis chose not to prosecute Kennedy for manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
, despite Judge Boyle's conclusions.
The Kopechne family did not bring any legal action against Senator Kennedy, but they did receive a payment of $90,904 from the Senator personally and $50,000 from his insurance company. The Kopechnes later explained their decision to not take legal action by saying that "We figured that people would think we were looking for blood money
Blood money (term)
Blood money is money or some sort of compensation paid by an offender or his family group to the family or kin group of the victim.-Particular examples and uses:...
."
Grand jury
On April 6, 1970, Dukes CountyDukes County, Massachusetts
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 14,987 people, 6,421 households, and 3,788 families residing in the county. The population density was 144 people per square mile . There were 14,836 housing units at an average density of 143 per square mile...
grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
assembled in special session to consider Kopechne's death. Judge Wilfred Paquet instructed the members of the grand jury that they could consider only those matters brought to their attention by the superior court, the district attorney or their own personal knowledge. Citing the orders of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Paquet told the grand jury that it could not see the evidence or Judge Boyle's report from the inquest (which at that time were still impounded). District Attorney Dinis, who had attended the inquest and seen Judge Boyle's report, told the grand jury that there was not enough evidence to indict Senator Kennedy on potential charges of manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
, perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
or driving to endanger. The grand jury called four witnesses who had not testified at the inquest: they testified for a total of 20 minutes, but no indictments were issued.
Fatal accident hearing
On July 23, 1969, the Registrar of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informed Senator Kennedy that his license would be suspended until a statutory hearing could be held concerning the accident. This suspension was required by Massachusetts law for any fatal motor accident where there were no witnesses. The in cameraIn camera
In camera is a legal term meaning "in private". It is also sometimes termed in chambers or in curia.In camera describes court cases that the public and press are not admitted to...
hearing was held May 18, 1970. It found that "operation was too fast for existing conditions". On May 27 the Registrar informed Sen. Kennedy in a letter that "I am unable to find that the fatal accident in which a motor vehicle operated by you was involved, was without serious fault on your part", and that as a result, his driver's license was suspended for a further six months.
Miscarriage
Sen. Kennedy's wife Joan Bennett KennedyJoan Bennett Kennedy
Joan Bennett Kennedy is an American musician, writer, and former model. She is the former wife of U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Edward "Ted" Moore Kennedy.-Early life:...
was pregnant at the time of the incident. Though confined to bed due to two previous miscarriages, she attended the funeral of Kopechne and stood beside her husband in court three days later. She suffered a third miscarriage soon thereafter which she blamed on the Chappaquiddick incident.
Revisionist interpretations of the evidence
All conspiracy hypotheses about the Chappaquiddick accident reject the interpretation of the events provided by Judge James Boyle. These theories fall into three groups:1) Kennedy was set up and framed by his political enemies for a crime he did not commit.
2) Kennedy attempted to divert the blame to others.
3) Kennedy conspired to cover up an earlier crime by staging an "accident".
A BBC 'Inside Story' programme, 'Chappaquiddick', broadcast on the 25th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne advanced a theory that Kennedy and Kopechne had gone out from the party in Kennedy's car, but that when Kennedy saw an off-duty policeman in his patrol car, he got out of the car, fearing the political consequences of being discovered by the police late at night with an attractive woman. According to the theory, Kennedy then returned to the party while Kopechne, unfamiliar both with the large car and the local area, drove the wrong way and crashed off the bridge. The programme argued this explanation would account for Kennedy's lack of concern the next morning (because he was unaware of the crash) and for forensic evidence of the injuries to Kopechne being inconsistent with her sitting in the passenger seat. A similar theory was advanced by Australian writer Bob Ellis
Bob Ellis
Bob Ellis is an Australian writer, journalist, film-maker and political commentator. He was a student at the University of Sydney at the same time as other notable Australians including Clive James, Germaine Greer, Les Murray, John Bell, Ken Horler, and Mungo McCallum...
.
Best-selling investigative writer Jack Olsen
Jack Olsen
Jack Olsen was an American journalist and author known for his thorough, scholarly approach to crime reporting. Olsen was Senior Editor and Chief for the Sun-Times in Chicago Illinois in 1954...
had earlier advanced a similar theory in his book The Bridge at Chappaquiddick, published early during 1970. Olsen's book was the first full-length examination of the case. Olsen wrote that Kopechne's shorter height (she was 5'2", a foot shorter than Kennedy) could have accounted for her possibly not even seeing the bridge as she drove Kennedy's car over unfamiliar roads, at night, with no external lighting, after having had several alcoholic drinks at the party both had attended. Olsen wrote that Kopechne normally drove a smaller Volkswagen
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
model car, which was much lighter and easier to handle than Kennedy's larger Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobile produced for most of its existence by General Motors. It was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory...
.
Legacy
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of Kennedy, including a mock advertisement in National Lampoon magazine showing a floating Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003...
with the remark that Kennedy would have been elected president had he been driving a Beetle that night; this satire resulted in legal action by Volkswagen
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
, claiming unauthorized use of its trademark. National Lampoon also printed a fake quote from Kennedy, as a "response" to a question on whether he planned to campaign for President in the next election: "I'll drive off that bridge when I come to it."
After Kennedy's televised speech on July 25, 1969, regarding the incident, telephone calls and telegrams to newspapers and to the Kennedy family were heavily in favor of his remaining in office, and he won reelection the next year
United States Senate election in Massachusetts, 1970
The United States Senate election of 1970 in Massachusetts was held on November 3, 1970. The incumbent Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy defeated his challengers...
with 62% of the vote. Nonetheless, the incident severely damaged his national reputation. Before Chappaquiddick, public polls showed that a large majority expected Kennedy to run for the presidency in 1972. After the incident, he pledged not to run in 1972 and declined to serve as George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
's running mate that year. In 1974, he pledged not to run in 1976, in part because of the renewed media interest in Chappaquiddick.
Kennedy finally announced his candidacy for the American presidency in late 1979, challenging incumbent President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
for the Democratic nomination for the 1980 election
Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1980
The 1980 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 1980 U.S. presidential election...
. On November 4, 1979, CBS broadcast a one-hour television special presented by Roger Mudd titled Teddy. The program consisted of an interview with Kennedy, interspersed with visual materials. Much of the show was devoted to the Chappaquiddick incident. During the interview, Mudd questioned Kennedy repeatedly about the incident and at one point accused him directly of lying. During the interview, Kennedy also gave an "incoherent and repetitive" answer to the question, "Why do you want to be President?", and by calling the American-supported Shah of Iran
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
"one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind". The program inflicted serious political damage on Kennedy. Carter alluded to the Chappaquiddick incident twice in five days, once declaring that he had not "panicked in the crisis." Kennedy lost the Democratic nomination to Carter, but remained a Senator until his death in 2009.
After Kennedy's death, Ed Klein, an editor for New York Times Magazine and an author of several books about the Kennedy family, stated that Kennedy asked people he met, "Have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?" Klein also said, "It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too."
Further reading
- 1969: The Ted Kennedy Episode by H. Don Hastings.
- 1970: Inquest into the Death of Mary Jo Kopechne, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Edgartown District Court. New York: EVR Productions.
- 1970:
- 1971: Teddy Bare, the Last of the Kennedy Clan. by Zad Rust.
- 1973: You, the Jury – in re: Chappaquiddick by R. B. Cutler.
- 1975: The Inspector's Opinion: The Chappaquiddick Incident by Malcolm Reybold.
- 1976: The Last Kennedy by Robert SherrillRobert SherrillRobert Sherrill is an American investigative journalist and longtime contributor to The Nation, Texas Observer, and many other magazines over the years including Playboy, the New Republic and the New York Times Magazine....
. - 1976: Burns, James M.James MacGregor BurnsJames MacGregor Burns is an historian and political scientist, presidential biographer, and authority on leadership studies. He is the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government Emeritus at Williams College and Distinguished Leadership Scholar at the of the School of Public Policy at the University...
Edward Kennedy and the Camelot Legacy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-07501-X. - 1979: Jones, Richard E. "The Chappaquiddick Inquest: The Complete Transcript of the Inquest into the Death of Mary Jo Kopechne".
- 1979: Kennedy's Chappaquiddick Revisited: What Really Happened by John Haggard.
- 1979: Tedrow, Thomas L. Death at Chappaquiddick. New Orleans: Pelican Company. ISBN 0-88289-249-5.
- 1980: Chappaquiddick Decision by Larryann C Willis.
- 1989: Chappaquiddick Revealed What Really Happened by Kenneth Kappel.
- 1992: Oates, Joyce C. Black WaterBlack Water (novella)-Plot introduction:Kelly Kelleher, a twenty-six-year-old magazine writer, meets a United States Senator on whom she wrote her thesis at a Fourth of July party. "The Senator," as he is referred to in the novel , plans to take her to his hotel for a romantic rendezvous, but a car accident plunges...
. New York: E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-93455-3 (fictional treatment). - 1993: Chappaquiddick: The Real Story by James E. T. Lange, Katherine, Jr. Dewitt.
- 2006: The Gemstone File: A Memoir by Stephanie Caruana. Victoria, B.C., Trafford. ISBN 1-4120-6137-7.
- 2006: Investigation of Bodies in Water by Daniel J. Spitz. In: Spitz, W.U. & Spitz, D.J. (eds): Spitz and Fisher’s Medicolegal Investigation of Death. Guideline for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigations (Fourth edition), Charles C. Thomas, pp.: 846–881; Springfield, Illinois.
- 2009: Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died, by Edward Klein. Crown Publishers, New York, ISBN 978-0-307-45103-3. (Includes a chapter on Chappaquiddick with quotes from the Inquest and other sources.)