3. Kennedy Was Never Charged with Manslaughter
The Edgartown Police Chief, James Arena, took Kennedy’s initial statement and met with him in the Edgartown police station the morning he confessed. Arena did his best to be helpful and supportive to Senator Kennedy, immediately recognizing him as one of the Kennedys. He put no pressure on Kennedy and did not ask any awkward questions about his conduct the previous night. He accepted Kennedy’s written statement, which was dictated to Paul F. Markham and agreed not to release it to the press or public. Arena held to this promise for several days but was eventually forced to release it due to both Kennedy’s ongoing silence and intense media scrutiny.
Arena later did the absolute minimum the law required of him, which was filing a charge of fleeing the scene of an accident. With no autopsy being ordered and only the barest of investigations into the crash, there was no evidence to go ahead with a charge of manslaughter. Kennedy pled guilty to leaving the scene, and the judge, who evidently was fully aware of the Kennedy family’s legacy, gave him the lightest sentence possible under the law which he further suspended. He referenced Kennedy’s spotless record and that the public would punish him enough.