Court TV
November 19, 2001
Kennedy Nephew to be Tried As Adult
By Sam Handlin
Connecticut's highest court upped the ante for Michael Skakel's murder trial, ruling that the Kennedy cousin should be tried in adult court for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley.
Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, was only 15 years old when Moxley, a classmate and neighbor of his, was brutally murdered with a golf club. The case went unsolved for years until new information caused authorities to charge Skakel in January 2000.
Now 41, Skakel was initially arraigned as an juvenile because of his age at the time of the murder. But last January Juvenile Court Judge Maureen Dennis transferred the case to adult court, ruling that the state did not have a juvenile facility that could properly handle the unique defendant.
Skakel defense attorney Mickey Sherman appealed the decision, arguing that the court could have come up with a more innovative approach for dealing with his client. The lawyer also stressed that the juvenile court system as constituted in 1975 focused on rehabilitation of youths, and that his client — relatively trouble free for 25 years — was an acclimated and functional member of society.
But the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Judge Dennis' transfer decision was "not an appealable final judgement," making Sherman's arguments moot.
The 15-year-old Moxley went out with friends on Oct. 30, 1975, Mischief Night in the town of Greenwich, to pull some pranks. When she had not returned by late that evening, her mother grew worried and called police.
During a search of the exclusive Belle Haven community the next day, a neighbor discovered the young girl's bloodied body under a tree set back in the Moxleys' yard. She had been beaten to death with a six iron and then stabbed through the neck with the club's broken shaft.
The murder initially made the front page of The New York Times and spurred a large police investigation, but the case petered out over time, with no arrests made but lingering suspicion focusing on the Skakel family.
Then, in the early 1990s, to put doubts to rest, the Skakels paid a firm of private investigators, Sutton Associates, to reexamine the case. Some of their findings cast doubt on the innocence of Michael and his brother Tommy. The report was subsequently leaked to the press and authorities.
Meanwhile, renewed attention was focused on the unsolved murder after a series of books were written about the case. Crime writer Dominick Dunne penned A Season in Purgatory, a novel based on the murder. Then former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman, one of the key players in the O.J. Simpson case, wrote Murder in Greenwich, an analysis of the case that accused Michael Skakel of the crime.
It is still unclear when the case will go to trial.
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