Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, nephew of Robert Kennedy’s wife Ethel, has had his murder conviction quashed by the Connecticut Supreme Court. A new trial has been ordered.
Skakel was convicted years after the fact of the 1975 murder of a neighbor’s child, Martha Moxley, just fifteen, who was beaten to death with a golf club allegedly when she refused his advances.
The court found that Skakel’s lawyer Michael Sherman made serious errors defending his client, including not introducing evidence of an alibi.
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The case made international news at the time because of the Kennedy connection. Skakel’s new lawyer argued that Skakel’s brother was a much more likely suspect and that Skakel had proof he was fifteen miles away.
Timeline in the case of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel https://t.co/4e6fkd8MqY pic.twitter.com/OwIPayMApo
— NBC Connecticut (@NBCConnecticut) May 4, 2018
The judge’s found that Skakel’s lawyer had never called a witness, Dennis Ossorio, who could have provided an alibi for Skakel.
“Without Ossorio’s testimony, the state was able to attack the petitioner’s (Skakel’s) alibi — 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,” Judge Palmer wrote.
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