New trial for RFK nephew
Verdict in ’75 Martha slay tossed
Connecticut’s top court on Friday ordered a new trial for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, who was convicted in the grisly 1975 murder of his 15-year-old Greenwich neighbor, Martha Moxley.
The 4-3 decision by the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated Skakel’s earlier conviction — a decision that infuriated Moxley’s family.
“He’ll be in jail for the rest of his life,’’ Moxley’s brother, John, said of Skakel. “He may not be physically in jail. He may be walking the streets — but he’ll be in hell at some point.”
John and his mother, Dorthy Moxley — who for decades have suffered through a roller-coaster of court proceedings in the case— said it was too soon for them to say what should happen next.
“It’s a disappointment and a surprise. This is not the best day,” Dorthy Moxley told the Greenwich Time.
The court’s majority ruled that Skakel’s colorful trial lawyer, Michael “Mickey” Sherman, did not do a proper job demonstrating a possible alibi for his client.
The ruling overturned a 2016 appellate decision that had reinstated Skakel’s conviction after a lower court’s order for a new trial.
Skakel was accused of fatally bludgeoning Moxley, his nextdoor neighbor, in their wealthy neighborhood when he was 15.
The privileged nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s wife, Ethel, was convicted of murder in 2002.
After being handed a 20-year prison term, he was released on bail following the lower court’s decision to overturn his murder conviction, in 2013.
Some of his famous kin, including Robert Kennedy Jr., have long insisted of his innocence.
The well-known name and his family’s wealthy generated international attention to his case.
Justice Richard Palmer, who wrote for the majority Friday, said Skakel didn’t get a fair trial because Sherman didn’t get alibi testimony from witness Denis Ossorio. “Without Ossorio’s testimony, the state was able to attack [Skakel’s] abili — a complete alibi for the time period during which it is highly likely that the victim was murdered — as part of a Skakel family conspiracy to cover up the petitioner’s involvement in the victim’s murder,” Palmer wrote. Hubert Santos, an appellate lawyer representing Skakel, had asked the court to re-examine its ruling reinstating the conviction.
Santos maintained that Sherman did not make good decisions in the case, saying that he did not focus on Skakel’s brother, Tommy, as a possible suspect and did not attempt to get in touch with Ossorio, who claimed that Skakel was miles away from the area when Moxley was killed. Santos also argued that there was no physical evidence or eyewitnesses connecting Skakel to Moxley’s murder. Sherman has defended his work, and state prosecutors have argued that hedi dan adequate job.