In less than two hours, a jury rejected the rape charge that loomed over William Kennedy Smith for more than eight months. A jubilant Smith hopes to begin work as a doctor; his accuser says she has no regrets.
"I want to thank the jurors. My life was in their hands, and I'm so grateful for the job they did," Smith said Wednesday outside the Palm Beach County courthouse. "I have an enormous debt to the system and to God, and I have a terrific faith in both of them."Even his lawyer said he was surprised at the speed of the verdict.
Smith, the 31-year-old nephew of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., had faced second-degree sexual battery and misdemeanor battery charges alleging that he raped a woman March 30 at his family's Palm Beach Estate.
His accuser, a 30-year-old woman from Jupiter, Fla., said she has no regrets.
"All that I have endured is worth it if I make it easier for one woman to make what was for me the only choice I could so that I could look myself in the mirror, and more importantly, face my 2-year-old daughter as she grows up," the single mother said in a statement released through her lawyer.
"(She) is angry and upset. I'm angry. We're all angry," her stepfather, an Ohio industrialist, told the New York Daily News.
In 10 hours of often tearful testimony, the woman described meeting Smith at the club Au Bar and giving him a ride back to the Kennedy estate. There, she said, he tackled and raped her on the lawn.
Smith took the stand, too, and adamantly and calmly denied the woman's allegations. He painted her as a sexual aggressor who accused him of rape for reasons he couldn't explain.
Smith grinned as the verdict was read and embraced his lawyer, Roy Black.
Across the courtroom, jury foreman Thomas Stearns Jr., a 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran, wiped tears from his eyes. Lea Haller, at 37 the youngest member of the four-woman, two-man jury, had tears streaming down her face.
Later, Haller noted that the dress Smith's accuser wore that night wasn't torn or stained - a point Smith's lawyers hammered at.
"The dress was an issue for me, no evidence on the dress," Haller said.
Juror Doris Welsch, 60, told The Miami Herald: "We went in there and did a job and felt we did a good one and it's over."
Prosecutor Moira Lasch, who was criticized for her rigid courtroom style, smiled to her husband as he accompanied her from the courtroom, but did not comment.
Jeffrey S. Weiner of Miami, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, called the quick acquittal a "complete rejection of the state's decision to charge and try Will Smith."
In her closing argument, Lasch called Smith a rapist who inflicted "violence, humiliation and degradation."
Black said the sexual encounter was "right out of a romance novel," lovemaking between a "star-struck" woman and a handsome youth on a moonlit night, waves lapping gently at the beach estate.Black stressed that the prosecution had to prove Smith guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He said the woman wasn't bruised enough and her clothes were not damaged enough to corroborate her account.
As for the accuser, Black described her testimony as "a little too dramatic."
"There were too many tears, there were too many `I can't recalls, I don't knows,' " Black said on CBS's "This Morning." "I just don't think a lot of it rang true." He added, "I think it was one of the best acting jobs I've ever seen."
Robin Miller, who heads a group called Families Enraged Against Rape, said the trial "has hurt all rape victims, and you're going to have a lot of victims that won't come forward because of what has been done to this woman." The jury considered testimony from 45 witnesses during a 10-day trial that was watched by millions of Americans live on cable television.
Smith's mother, Jean Kennedy Smith, and other Kennedy family members were in the courtroom when the verdict was read.
"I feel great, just great!" Mrs. Smith said.
Absent was his uncle, Sen. Kennedy, who spoke to reporters briefly Wednesday night in Boston.
"I'd always believed that after all the facts were in, that Will would be found innocent. My heart goes out to Will, who I love very much," said Kennedy, who had testified.
"If there's anything good that has come out of this whole long experience, it's the renewed closeness of our family and friends," he added.