"Politics played too important a role in this prosecution," Professor Winick said.
And Mr. Foley is not the only person who could possibly face prosecution, Professor Berman said.
That could be problematic for the prosecution, Professor Gillers said, because the defense lawyer could pin the witness to certain facts that would prevent the prosecution from later changing its theory of the case.
Despite the greater burden the 1975 laws place on the prosecution, Professor Dunlap said, Mr. Skakel is unlikely to retain his legal status as a juvenile.
To avoid prosecution, professors would need to take an official leave of absence during any such stint abroad.
"I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their lives, and those who help them should be free from prosecution", said Professor Hawking.
"When regulators don't believe in regulation and don't get what is going on at the companies they oversee, there can be no major white-collar crime prosecutions," said Henry N. Pontell, professor of criminology, law and society in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine.
"A Democratic Congress has done its level best to prevent prosecutions in civilian court," Professor Chesney said.
"Basically, since the 1980s, prosecutors started charging pregnant women who use drugs with crimes like child endangerment or delivering drugs to a minor... and in almost every state except South Carolina and Alabama, the courts invalidated those prosecutions," Linda Fentiman, a Pace University professor specializing in health and criminal law, told me.
Evidence from one prosecution expert, the paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow, was a key factor in each case.
