Looks like there's one less grand jury in Cheney's future.

The Kenedy County Sheriff's Department today cleared Vice President Dick Cheney in the shooting mishap that injured an Austin lawyer, calling it an accident.

Funny, when other people have accidental shootings, it tends to go a lot less smoothly.

Tacoma 18-Year-old gets 9-year sentence in apparently accidental shooting death

Granted, in that case a death was involved, but across the country, a good percentage of those involved in accidental shootings find themselves headed for court.  Even when there's no death involved.  Even when they were hunting.

First of all, let me begin this web with Alan Dershowitz's lawyerly observation:

Why would a media-savvy and clever man like Dick Cheney delay notifying the press and the police about an accident when a) he knew it would eventually be covered by the press and b) he knew he would be criticized for delaying release of the story?
A simple cost/benefit analysis suggests that he (or those advising him) must have believed that there was more to be gained than lost by a 14 hour delay that would eventually be made public. It is likely, therefore, that something happened during that 14 hour period which was worth the negative costs of the delay.

This makes perfect sense to me. Something needed to be hidden...and hiding that something was worth the shit storm over the 14 hour delay. Dershowitz and most others are speculating that it was, more than likely booze.

I have a different take.

Corpus Christi, TX (Rotters) - In a stunning turn of events today, it was discovered that Vice President Cheney returned yesterday to Corpus Christi, Texas after his friend and shooting victim Harry Whittington suffered a heart attack secondary to complications from the gunshot. Whittington's condition rapidly deteriorated to the point this morning that a risky and groundbreaking procedure was undertaken in which the vice president's heart was removed and transplanted into his friend. A hospital spokesperson declared the procedure a resounding success and stated that both men were awake and alert and joking with the nursing staff.