Experts and average citizens alike said William Kennedy Smith's acquittal could return some luster to the Kennedy family's tarnished image but discourage women from bringing charges of date rape.
Here, in the home base of the Kennedy clan, people clustered around television sets Wednesday to watch the jury pronounce Smith not guilty of rape. "What we have learned and relearned and relearned is when a woman charges a man with rape it is she who goes on trial," said Ellen Convisser, president of the National Organization for Women in Massachusetts.But Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a Boston University Medical School professor, said the verdict shows women can't "behave in any reckless and ill-advised way and then draw a cloak of puritanical indignation by crying `rape' when the consequences are uncontrollable."
Susan Estrich, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and herself a rape victim, said she was "absolutely certain" Smith would be acquitted.
"Once the judge decided to exclude the evidence from the three other women," she said, "it was clear there was no supporting evidence in this case."
Regulars at Au Bar, in Palm Beach, Fla., where Smith met his accuser, a 30-year-old woman from nearby Jupiter, said they don't expect the Kennedys to rejoin the social scene soon.
"You'll never spot a Kennedy again in this bar," said patron Reva Kogan.
At Boston's Bull and Finch Pub, the setting for the TV sitcom "Cheers," some patrons thought Smith was wrongly accused.
"I've always liked the Kennedys. The trial showed that he as a Kennedy was as human as anyone else," said Jim Leary of Worcester.
Some observers said the outcome would help erase a stain on the family's name.
"There's no question that since the family itself was on trial as well as Willie Smith, his victory is a victory for the family as well," said Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Kennedy biographer.
Paul Watanabe, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, said the jury's verdict would bring supporters of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., back into the fold.