Law and Order and the trial of Kerry Kennedy

Having watched the hit TV show, Law and Order for years, I have come to understand that certain crimes are not prosecutable, because they are not conventional crimes. There are L & O episodes where the D.A.'s and A.D.A.'s have exercised their righteousness upon being asked to bring to trial cases which really have no case material in them barring the moral content of the defendant's character.

Such was the recently concluded trial of Kerry Kennedy: The jury acquitted Ms. Kennedy from misdemeanor charges filed against her by the Westchester County D.A.'s office. 

A year and a half ago, Kerry Kennedy had driven her car in Westchester under the influence of Zolpidem, a generic version of the sleep-aid Ambien. She had driven erratically for a few minutes before stalling in a side road. She had been found slumped on her steering wheel.

This was a victimless event and the only death and/or injury that was luckily avoided was that of Kerry Kennedy herself. She was lucky to have come out of the accident bodily unharmed. 

Yet she was charged with two counts of misdemeanor. The trail which took place a few days ago after 20 months came to a speedy conclusion when the jury took less than an hour to find her not-guilty.

It's anybody's guess as to why Kennedy was prosecuted in the first place. If this were to be fictionalized into a future Law and Order Episode, it would fall under the L & O franchise, "Criminal Intent." The trial seems to have been about Kennedy's intent; did she intend to drive under the influence of a sleep-inducing drug and endanger the lives of fellow drivers on the road that day? Does the driving under the influence throw a shadow of doubt on Kennedy's character, her reliability?

Kerry Kennedy is New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo's ex-wife and a scion of the illustrious Kennedy family. I am positive the trial wasn't orchestrated by Cuomo's personal peeve against an ex-wife. They are on extremely amiable terms, as all divorced couples among the elite are. 

Kerry Kennedy said in her defense that she had mistaken the drug to be her routine prescription drug that she takes to manage her thyroids.