Skakel Gets New Trial in ’75 Killing of Teenager in Connecticut By JAMES BARRON Published: October 23, 2013 A Connecticut judge on Wednesday ordered a new trial for Michael C. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy who was convicted in 2002 of bludgeoning a neighbor with a golf club in 1975, saying his original lawyer had not represented him effectively. The decision was another turn in a high-profile case that drew television crews and celebrity crime writers like Dominick Dunne. Judge Thomas A. Bishop set aside the murder conviction of Mr. Skakel, 53, who was sentenced to 20 years to life for killing the neighbor, Martha Moxley, when they were both teenagers in Greenwich. The 136-page decision amounted to a review of the trial and an attack on the way Michael Sherman, the lawyer who represented Mr. Skakel before he was convicted, had handled his defense. Judge Bishop said Mr. Sherman had been “in a myriad of ways ineffective” as Mr. Skakel’s lawyer. “The defense of a serious felony prosecution requires attention to detail, an energetic investigation and a coherent plan of defense” that is capably executed, the judge wrote. “Trial counsel’s failures in each of these areas of representation were significant and, ultimately, fatal to a constitutionally adequate defense. As a consequence of trial counsel’s failures as stated, the state procured a judgment of conviction that lacks reliability.” Mr. Skakel’s current lawyer, Hubert J. Santos, said he was thrilled with the decision. “Pleased is an understatement,” he said, adding that he would file a motion on Thursday to have Mr. Skakel freed on bail. Mr. Skakel has served 11 years of his sentence. Last year, a parole board rejected his application to be released. The state’s attorney handling the case, John C. Smriga, told The Associated Press that prosecutors would appeal Judge Bishop’s ruling. Calls to Mr. Sherman on Wednesday were not returned. He has defended his representation of Mr. Skakel and told The Hartford Courant in April that he hoped Judge Bishop would rule in Mr. Skakel’s favor. “I don’t have mixed emotions about this,” Mr. Sherman said then. “I want him out of jail. That’s the priority.” The victim’s brother, John Moxley, said he found the decision frustrating, coming after previous appeals had been rejected. “It’s just amazing that you have all these appeals, the appellate courts, all these different very sophisticated judges, and then, you know, a judge in a sleepy little town way upstate in Connecticut completely upsets the apple cart,” he said. “But we’ll get through this. There’s no question that Michael’s guilty.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and cousin of Mr. Skakel’s who helped develop new evidence after Mr. Skakel was convicted, said he was happy with the decision. “A first-year law student from any of my classes would have done a better job than Mickey Sherman, who’s a very likable guy but was clearly interested — his ambition was to be a television lawyer and he thought this trial was going to be his ticket to that career,” he said. “He told a bar association meeting that he intended to have a lot of fun at that trial.” “Michael had an airtight alibi and five witnesses,” Mr. Kennedy said. “Anybody who couldn’t win that case should not be admitted to the bar.” In seeking a new trial, Mr. Skakel and his lawyers claimed that Mr. Sherman failed to provide adequate representation. Among other things, Mr. Skakel accused Mr. Sherman of failing to pursue an alibi defense; failing to rebut the testimony of two schoolmates who maintained that Mr. Skakel had admitted to the murder; and failing to prepare an effective closing argument, a lapse Judge Bishop called “both inadequate and improper.” “His argument was, in the main, an unfocused running commentary on the state’s evidence,” the judge wrote, adding that Mr. Sherman had failed to mention the notion of reasonable doubt. “Attorney Sherman’s argument did not provide the jury with any template for decision making,” the judge noted. The judge said that Mr. Sherman had billed more than $1.2 million for representing Mr. Skakel. Mr. Sherman pleaded guilty in 2010 to failing to pay two years’ worth of federal income taxes totaling more than $420,000 and served a year and a day in a minimum-security prison camp in upstate New York. Judge Bishop also faulted Mr. Sherman’s handling of the jury selection phase of Mr. Skakel’s trial. The judge said that Mr. Sherman “unreasonably chose a juror who was not simply a police officer but one who was friendly with Detective Lunney, a lead investigator for the Greenwich police and a principal state’s witness.” Mr. Skakel was not arrested until he was in his late 30s, a quarter of a century after the murder. He was convicted after a three-week trial that brought a number of unpleasant details to light, including his drinking and his drug use — and his claim, on the night of the murder, that he had climbed a tree and masturbated while trying to look into Ms. Moxley’s bedroom. She was struck with a 6-iron from a set that had belonged to Mr. Skakel’s mother. She was hit with so much force that the head of the club broke apart. Mr. Sherman had argued that Mr. Skakel was miles away, at a cousin’s home, watching “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” on television. Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 04:01:01 +0000
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