06/08/10 Here Is An Appeal Idea That The Kennedy Liars, I Mean, Lawyers Can Use For Michael Skakel

To The Editor:

One thing that I've thought about for years...The Moxley Murder

Did the police ever consider that a person or people of interest might've entered via the Belle Haven Club or some other shoreline property, hide their boat(s), do the "deed" and retreat back from whence they came?

I wasn't around when the murder occured (had left that Aug. for College), but knew of many instances where "the kids" (and they were 14-17/18 at the time) used to do this all the time to drive the "rent-a-cop(s) crazy.

Just food for thought.

Name Withheld By Request

COMMENT:

Yesterday, was the eighth anniversary of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel conviction of beating Martha Moxley to death 27 years earlier. Greenwich Roundup thinks that the murder of Miss Moxley is where he belongs - in prison.

Unfortunately, the Kennedy cousin who was convicted of fatally beating his 15-year-old neighbor with a golf club in 1975, could be eligible for parole in just a few years.

Michael Skakel, who is a cousin of Ethel Kennedy, has earned the right to a parole hearing based on a good-behavior policy that has since been eliminated. He earned points for staying out of trouble while in the Connecticut prison and for participating in programs, including an art program. However, the policy that allowed inmates to accrue points toward early release was discontinued in 1994.

Skakel was convicted in 2002 of the decades-old murder of Martha Moxley, his brother’s girlfriend, whom he beat to death with a golf club when both were just 15 years old. Two former students of a Maine prep school that Skakel later attended said that he confessed to the killing, and that he bragged about it, saying, “I’m going to get away with murder. I’m a Kennedy.”

In the years following Moxley’s death, Skakel was arrested for drunk driving and sent to the Elan School, receiving addiction treatment there. He competed on the national speeding skiing circuit and worked for several Kennedy relations, including Ted Kennedy and cousin Michael Kennedy.

Skakel, now 49, has mounted an elaborate appeal. In November 2003, he appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, saying that his case should have been heard in Juvenile Court rather than Superior Court, that there had been prosecutorial misconduct in the original trial, and that the statute of limitations had expired. The court rejected the appeal and affirmed his conviction. Skakel has since begun post-conviction proceedings, including a request for a new trial which was denied by a Superior Court judge and by a five-judge panel of the Connecticut Supreme Court, which ruled against the appeal in early April 2010.

Experts agree that the parole hearing will be highly publicized, and wonder if the Connecticut parole board will be overly cautious, due to a recent case in which two paroled prisoners broke into a home, killing three women.

The fact that almost four decades have passed since the Moxley murder, however, may work in Skakel’s favor.

Moxley’s brother, John, opposes the release.

Michael Skakel has shown no remorse.

There’s been nothing to suggest that imprisonment has changed Michael Skakel's mindset.

Michael Skakel should remain in prison for the rest of his life.

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