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Eugene

(61,595 posts)
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 11:30 AM Jan 2019

U.S. Supreme Court won't reinstate murder conviction for Kennedy kin

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it would not consider reinstating the murder conviction of Kennedy family member Michael Skakel in the 1975 killing of a teenaged neighbor in the wealthy New York suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Skakel is a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, widow of slain U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He has been under legal scrutiny since his neighbor Martha Moxley was beaten to death with a golf club in 1975, when both were 15 years old. He was arrested for the crime after a 1998 book revived interest in the unsolved case.

Prosecutors in Connecticut had petitioned the high court to review last year’s decision from the Connecticut Supreme Court throwing out Skakel’s 2002 conviction on the grounds that his trial lawyer made a crucial error.

Their request was backed by 11 states, which argued the high court should rule in Connecticut’s favor to forestall a wave of appeals based on claims of ineffective legal counsel.

-snip-

SUPREME COURT JANUARY 7, 2019 / 10:06 AM / UPDATED 12 MINUTES AGO
Joseph Ax
3 MIN READ


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-skakel/u-s-supreme-court-wont-reinstate-murder-conviction-for-kennedy-kin-idUSKCN1P11GV

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U.S. Supreme Court won't reinstate murder conviction for Kennedy kin (Original Post) Eugene Jan 2019 OP
This has been going on for so long. Honeycombe8 Jan 2019 #1
Of course. Archae Jan 2019 #2
That documentary was superseded by new information that introduced a great deal of doubt -- pnwmom Jan 2019 #3
As I recall, she wasn't dragged anywhere. Honeycombe8 Jan 2019 #4
She was dragged for 80 feet. She was found -- but not killed -- underneath the tree. pnwmom Jan 2019 #5
Well, I wasn't at the trial. Honeycombe8 Jan 2019 #6
They didn't find any physical evidence, including DNA, linked to Michael, even though pnwmom Jan 2019 #7

Honeycombe8

(37,648 posts)
1. This has been going on for so long.
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 12:15 PM
Jan 2019

Looks like he won't spend the rest of his life in prison. But he has spent some time there, and his life has been made a hell with the documentary and trials.

I saw a documentary on it. It sure looked like he murdered the girl, but I saw it a long time ago, so I don't remember all the details. Sometimes documentaries have a viewpoint and don't necessarily give all the arguments on the other side. But it looked like the cops or investigators didn't collect evidence properly...there was a bat or something, as I recall.

Archae

(46,262 posts)
2. Of course.
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 12:47 PM
Jan 2019

Someone can say their movie is a "documentary" yet it can be lacking in facts, or have accusations that have no evidence added to it.

Just look at Dinesh D'Souza and his "documentaries."

Some of Michael Moore's.

"Loose Change"

"Making A Murderer"

One of the best real documentaries I've seen was "Hearts And Minds."

And horrible as it was, "Triumph Of The Will."

pnwmom

(108,925 posts)
3. That documentary was superseded by new information that introduced a great deal of doubt --
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 04:05 PM
Jan 2019

which is why his conviction was overturned.

At least one witness entirely unrelated to the Kennedy's put him in another town, in a house with some Kennedy relatives, miles away during the period when the murder took place. For some reason the attorney failed to call this witness to testify. Also, he was just a scrawny kid when the murder took place. The idea that he had the physical strength to drag the girls body all that distance never made sense. But there was another adult man around at the time -- the tutor -- who seemed much more likely.

Honeycombe8

(37,648 posts)
4. As I recall, she wasn't dragged anywhere.
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 05:52 PM
Jan 2019

She was killed at the base of the tree that Skakel used to peep at her on. He could see into her window from the tree. That's where her body was found.

Some people think his older brother killed her. I remember that he made incriminating statements at his private school to others. Not exactly confessions, but incriminating. And told a fellow student that he might have killed her; he was really drunk and had blacked out.

But whatever, he has spent many years being suspected and then convicted.

It's horrible for the girl's family, though.

pnwmom

(108,925 posts)
5. She was dragged for 80 feet. She was found -- but not killed -- underneath the tree.
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 05:57 PM
Jan 2019

Of course it was terrible for the girls family, but their sense of closure shouldn't be purchased at the price of an innocent man going to prison.

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,236427,00.html

The killer then dragged the girl 80 feet to a tree, stopping at one point along the way to roll the body over and change from pulling the upper body to pulling it by the feet.


https://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-cameron-skakel-not-guilty-20180507-story.html

On Friday, in a stunning reversal of its 2016 decision, a bitterly divided Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Michael Skakel is entitled to a new trial for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. Rather than trying him again, however, the state needs to reopen the investigation and determine who really killed Martha Moxley.

The court said Skakel's attorney, Michael Sherman, rendered ineffective assistance by failing to present testimony from a credible witness who supported Skakel's alibi. There was and is no forensic evidence pointing to him — no DNA, no fingerprints, no blood stains on his clothing. He was convicted in 2002 not on the basis of evidence but on the basis of a theory and the since discredited testimony of a heroin addict.

Moxley, 15, was murdered on Halloween eve, Oct. 30, 1975. Around 9 p.m., she and two friends walked across the street to the Skakel home in the Belle Haven area of Greenwich and sat with Skakel, also 15, in the family's Lincoln listening to music. Around 9:15, Michael's brother Tommy, 17, joined them. Around 9:30, two of Michael and Tommy's older brothers and a cousin took the car to go to the cousin's home in North Greenwich to watch a Monty Python show on television. Michael's defense was that he went with the two older brothers and cousin and returned home around 11:15 p.m. That was confirmed at the time by the brothers and cousin. The witness Sherman failed to call also supported the story.

SNIP

In the 2013 habeas trial, a man who had not testified at the original trial said he was at the Skakel cousin's home in North Greenwich that evening and talked with Michael, his brothers and cousin while they watched television. The judge concluded Sherman could have easily located the man, Denis Ossorio, prior to the trial and called him to testify in support of Michael's alibi. But Sherman didn't do that. That was one of the reasons the judge threw out the conviction and the reason the Supreme Court agreed on Friday.

Honeycombe8

(37,648 posts)
6. Well, I wasn't at the trial.
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 08:04 PM
Jan 2019

None of us heard all the evidence.

I'm not sure of that timeline you gave, but if she was killed around 9 to 10, that gave the brothers ample time to kill her and then go to the cousin's house. Some think it was an older brother who actually killed her. Skakel said he was drinking heavily that night and had blacked out. She was last seen alive at their house. Then the murder weapon was found at their house ...I think it was missed at first and mysteriously appeared later.

I don't know whether he did it or not.

As for dragging her, even a skinny 15 year old male is plenty strong to drag 115 lbs around. Males are much stronger, pound for pound, than females. Weight has nothing to do with strength. I see his in movies a lot...where an overweight woman is portrayed to be strong, when in reality, being fat or thin has nothing to do with musculature or strength.

pnwmom

(108,925 posts)
7. They didn't find any physical evidence, including DNA, linked to Michael, even though
Mon Jan 7, 2019, 08:31 PM
Jan 2019

they suspected sexual assault (her underwear had been pulled down).

Since the standard is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and there was no physical evidence that linked him to the crime, and a non-family witness who put him at a different location, I don't see how he could have been fairly convicted. And neither did the courts in the end.

Also, the brother named Tommy didn't go with him to the party in the other town. Michael went with other relatives to the party. And an unrelated girl named Helen saw Martha alive after Michael left in the car.

Based on my observations of teenagers, I disagree with you that a scrawny teenage boy like Michael would be "plenty strong" to drag a girl about his own weight for that kind of distance. Perhaps it was his older brother Tommy, perhaps it was Littleton, or perhaps it was someone else. (Robert Kennedy has a different theory.) An adult man would have been more likely to be able to carry out that crime.

In the link below tere's a picture of the two of them at about that age.

https://the-line-up.com/martha-moxley-and-the-boy-who-was-convicted-of-killing-her-27-years-later

In the 1990s, Michael told investigators from Sutton Associates—a Nassau County (New York) investigative firm that Rucky Skakel hired in 1992 to re-investigate the Moxley murder—that Martha declined his invitation to come with them to Sursum Corda, citing her 9:30 p.m. curfew. Michael and Martha made plans to go trick-or-treating the following night. With that, Rush Jr. backed the car out onto the street and headed off to Sursum Corda with his brothers John and Michael and his cousin, Jimmy, leaving Helen Ix, Martha, Geoff, and Tommy standing in the driveway. The facts of this departure and the occupants of the car have never been plausibly disputed. Tommy and Jimmy told this to police in 1975. John did as well; on December 9, 1975, he passed a polygraph administered by Connecticut State Police, asking him, “On October 30, from 9:30 to 10:30 P.M., were you with Mike, Rush, and James Terrien?” Georgeann Dowdle, Jimmy Dowdle’s sister (of the same first name as their mother, Georgeann Terrien), told police in November 1975 that she remembered seeing John, Michael, Rush Jr., and her brother arriving at Sursum Corda “just before 10:00 P.M.” A 1992 police report confirms the approximate time of the Lincoln’s departure from the Skakel home, as well as the four occupants of the car.

A few minutes after the Lincoln exited the driveway (around 9:20 P.M.), Helen Ix and Geoff decided to leave. Helen testified in 2002 that she felt like a “third wheel” because Martha and Tommy became “playful … flirtatious” at the end of the darkened driveway. Helen also had a 9:30 P.M. curfew. “It was time to go home,” she testified. It was the last time she saw her friend Martha alive.

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