moodboard/Thinkstock(HARTFORD, Conn.) — The murder conviction of Michael Skakel, the nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow Ethel Kennedy, was reinstated by a Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday after a lower court ruled Skakel had “inadequate” legal representation.
With a 4-3 majority, the state’s highest court reversed the decision and concluded “the petitioner’s trial counsel rendered constitutionally adequate representation.”
Skakel was convicted in 2002 for the 1975 murder of his 15-year-old neighbor Martha Moxley. Skakel, now 56, was also 15 at the time. Moxley’s body was found bludgeoned and stabbed with a golf club on her family’s estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, across the street from where Skakel lived with his father and six siblings.
After a request for a new trial was denied by the state’s Supreme Court in 2010, Skakel appealed against his trial lawyer, Michael Sherman, arguing that he did not adequately represent him. He was granted a new trial in 2013 and has been free from serving a prison sentence of 20 years to life since then.
Skakel’s criminal defense attorney said about the decision in a statement Friday: “We are taken aback by the decision . But we have not as of yet fully digested it.
We will be working through the night doing some legal research.
And will begin preparing for other contemplated procedures Including a motion for reconsideration by the Connecticut Supreme Court.”
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