Connecticut Court Reverses Murder Conviction of Michael Skakel

The case was tabloid fodder, and news of it filled books and hours of television. The murder of a 15-year-old girl in a genteel Connecticut suburb went years without arrests, only to turn into a drawn-out legal battle that transfixed much of the nation with its connections to the Kennedy family, questions about the influence of wealth and privilege, and twist after twist.

The latest turn, and quite possibly the last, came Friday, when the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Michael C. Skakel, who had been found guilty of killing the girl, Martha Moxley, with a golf club in 1975. The decision was, in itself, another surprising development, reversing a ruling by the same court not even two years ago.

Skakel, a Kennedy nephew, had been convicted in 2002 of killing Moxley, who lived in the same neighborhood in Greenwich. He was found guilty after a three-week trial that brought to light details including his drinking and drug use. But as his legal team waged an appeal in recent years, they argued that he had been failed repeatedly by his trial lawyer.

Prosecutors will now have to decide whether they will try the case again. On Friday, they said they were reviewing the decision, but they would face significant obstacles, such as witnesses who are dead and hazy memories more than four decades after the crime. As it was, it took 25 years for Skakel to be charged after an investigation that had long been stalled for lack of physical evidence.

In Friday’s majority opinion, Justice Richard N. Palmer cited the shortcomings of Skakel’s trial lawyer, noting the conviction was founded on a case “devoid of any forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony linking the petitioner to the crime.”

But in a lacerating dissent, Justice Carmen E. Espinosa argued that more than anything else, Skakel had benefited from his wealth and prominent connections. She wrote that other convicted criminals, many of whom are minorities, “would undoubtedly be thrilled to receive such special treatment.”

“Unfortunately for them, the vast majority do not share the petitioner’s financial resources, social standing, ethnicity or connections to a political dynasty,” Espinosa wrote. “Nor do their cases share the same ‘glam’ and celebrity factor as this cause célèbre.”

Skakel, who was 15 at the time of the killing, was not arrested until he was in his late 30s. He was sentenced to 20 years to life for the murder. Skakel was released in 2013, after spending more than a decade in prison. A judge had vacated the original sentence, finding that Skakel’s trial lawyer had not provided effective representation.

Then, in 2016, the Supreme Court reinstated the conviction, disagreeing with that judge’s finding. The high court, acting on a request from the defense, decided to review its own decision. In the interim, the makeup of the court changed with the retirement of the justice who wrote the majority opinion in the last ruling.

Friday’s ruling was a reminder of how, after more than 40 years, the enduring legal struggle had left the Moxleys and the Skakels without any solid resolution. The two families had lived in the same gated community on the Connecticut coast. The morning after Moxley did not return home, Skakel answered the door when Moxley’s mother knocked, searching for her daughter.

John Moxley, Martha Moxley’s older brother, called the decision disappointing. Dorthy Moxley, the victim’s mother, said in a brief telephone interview Friday that she continues to believe Skakel killed her daughter. “No question about it,” she said.

“What do I want to say?” Dorothy Moxley said. “Well, I am surprised and not particularly happy about this. But we’ll handle and do what we have to do.”

Skakel’s lawyers had argued that his lawyer during the trial, Mickey Sherman, failed to investigate a witness who, they say, could have confirmed that Skakel was nowhere close to the Moxley family’s home at the time of the murder. They also said that his older brother, Thomas Skakel, was the likely culprit.

“The Supreme Court did the right thing,” Michael A. Fitzpatrick, Skakel’s lawyer, said in a statement, adding that his client had been “unjustly imprisoned” for more than 11 years. “To be absolutely clear,” he said, “Michael Skakel is innocent of this crime.”

Thomas Skakel did not respond to requests for comment.

Martha Moxley, a popular teenager, was killed on Oct. 30, 1975, her body found under a pine tree on her family’s estate. She had been struck with a steel golf club with enough force to break the club, with the head and part of the shaft ending up more than 100 feet away. Another piece of the shaft was used to stab her through the neck.

The grisly crime led to years of police investigation, Hollywood treatments and books that capitalized on the case’s link to the Kennedy family — Skakel’s aunt is Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy.

After Skakel’s arrest 25 years later, prosecutors faced major hurdles as they brought the case to trial, which was centered largely on circumstantial evidence. The case raised a host of legal issues. He was initially charged as a juvenile, because of his age at the time of the murder, and had he been convicted in juvenile court, he would have faced little jail time. Beyond that, important witnesses died before the trial, and prosecutors did not have direct physical evidence linking Skakel to the crime.

Investigators had recovered the golf club used in the attack, a 6-iron from a set that had belonged to Skakel’s mother. But investigators had not found fingerprints or blood connecting it to a perpetrator. Skakel also claimed to have an alibi: watching “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” on television at a cousin’s home miles from the murder scene. After Skakel’s conviction, several jurors said that they had been convinced of his guilt by his own incriminating words and years of erratic behavior. They said Skakel had changed his account of where he was during the killing, and they believed relatives and friends could have been covering up for him. The jury relied on a taped conversation between Skakel and the ghostwriter of his planned autobiography in which Skakel placed himself near the murder scene.

Facing a life sentence, his aunt sent the judge a handwritten letter from Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, describing a tumultuous childhood and asking for leniency. She praised Skakel for his “mental toughness, fortitude, courage and tenacity” in overcoming his difficult upbringing and alcohol addiction, and for his “sweetness, kindness, good cheer and love of life.” The letter was signed, “Out of the depths, but with hope, Ethel Kennedy.”

One of Skakel’s most vigorous defenders has been his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former prosecutor and environmental lawyer who, in a book published two years ago, explored what he said was a botched police investigation and prosecutorial misbehavior and offered alternative theories about who killed Moxley.

“I think it’s a strong validation," Kennedy said Friday, “and I’m very happy for Michael.”