New murder trial ordered for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel Arizona wildfire about half contained; evacuation orders end

The Connecticut Supreme Court has vacated Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel’s murder conviction and ordered a new trial in connection with a 1975 killing in wealthy Greenwich.

The court issued a 4-3 ruling Friday that Skakel’s trial attorney, Michael Sherman, failed to present evidence of an alibi. The decision reversed the court’s previous ruling that reinstated Skakel’s conviction after a lower court had ordered a new trial.

Skakel is a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy. He was convicted of murder in 2002 in the bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley in their wealthy Greenwich neighborhood in 1975, when they were teenagers. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, but another judge granted him a new trial in 2013, citing mistakes by his trial lawyer.

Firefighters have containment lines around roughly half of a north-central Arizona wildfire that destroyed approximately 35 homes and authorities are lifting an evacuation order for areas that include hundreds of vacation cabins and other residences.

The fire approximately near Clints Well about 50 miles south of Flagstaff has burned approximately 19.7 square miles of forest and was 48 percent contained as of Friday.

Coconino County officials’ staged lifting Friday of evacuation orders applied initially to residents who lost homes, then included others whose property is east of State Route 87 and finally will apply to those with property west of the highway.

Nearly 600 firefighters and other personnel are assigned to the fire which authorities say was started April 27 by an abandoned illegal campfire.

— The Associated Press