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Judge denies Skakel's request for new trial; sentencing Thursday

Michael Skakel
Michael Skakel shown earlier this year during his trial.  


NORWALK, Connecticut (CNN) -- Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel faces sentencing Thursday in the 1975 killing of his teen-age neighbor after a judge denied his request for a new trial.

Skakel, 41, was convicted of murder in June in the October 1975 killing of Martha Moxley. Skakel's lawyers had asked Superior Court Judge John Kavanewsky to overturn that conviction Wednesday and order a new trial, but Kavanewsky refused.

Moxley was beaten to death with a golf club outside her home in Greenwich, Connecticut. Both Moxley and Skakel -- the nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy -- were 15 at the time.

Skakel could be sentenced to 10 years to life in prison, but he could serve as little as six years because of credit for good behavior.

"I know Michael has his darling little boy, and I know it's wonderful for fathers to be with their children," Moxley's mother, Dorthy Moxley, told reporters Wednesday. "But I'm never going to be with my daughter. So I think it's only right that he go to jail, too, and he serve a long sentence."

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CNN's Deborah Feyerick reports on the reaction of family members to a sentencing hearing for Michael Skakel on Wednesday (August 28)

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But because Skakel will be sentenced under 1975 guidelines, he could serve as little as 13 years in prison even if Kavanewsky hands down the maximum term.

Unlike people now serving time for murder in Connecticut, Skakel will be eligible for parole and could receive time off his sentence for good behavior. If Skakel gets the minimum sentence, his good time credits make him eligible for release by 2008; if he draws the maximum sentence, he could be released as early as 2015.

Witnesses Thursday are expected to include Dorthy Moxley and Skakel friends such as David Bangsberg, who told CNN on Wednesday that "the Michael Skakel that I know is incapable of what allegedly was done."

Skakel has been in custody since his conviction. He was led into court in handcuffs Wednesday morning, wearing a blue suit. He appeared paler and thinner than he had during the trial.

"If that's what two months in jail does to you, I hope I never go," Moxley's brother, John Moxley, said.

"It's real sad. I'm sure there are people who Michael has touched their lives in a very positive way," he said. "But that doesn't for a minute outweigh what he's done to our family."

Judge: Sketch information was available to defense

Martha Moxley
Martha Moxley  

In asking Kavanewsky to overturn Skakel's conviction, his new attorneys, Hubert Santos and Hope Seeley, argued that prosecutors withheld evidence during the trial -- including a composite sketch of a possible suspect drawn up in the days after the killing.

They said the sketch resembled Kenneth Littleton, who began working as a live-in tutor for the Skakels the night Moxley was killed. One of the defenses Skakel's previous lawyer, Mickey Sherman, pursued at trial was that Littleton could have killed Moxley.

But prosecutors argued that the drawing would not have cleared Skakel, since the sketch was not of Littleton but of a man who lived on the Moxley's street -- a man investigators had questioned and ruled out as a suspect.

Kavanewsky said that sketch had been mentioned in numerous reports that the defense team had available, and Skakel's lawyers could have called the security guard who gave police that description to testify.

Gary Shannon, an alternate juror during Skakel's trial, said the sketch was unlikely to have had an impact on the outcome.

"I know I have spoken to a number of other jurors since this has surfaced, and I will just say is that the general reaction is that it would have had none," said Shannon, who did not participate in deliberations. "I can't speak specifically to each juror who did have a vote, but I don't think it would have affected us."

Skakel lawyers also contended prosecutors withheld other information from his defense, including police profiles of Littleton and Michael Skakel's older brother Tommy. But a source close to the prosecution team said the profiles were not evidence but police "work products" -- protected as privileged material.

His lawyers also argued that a prosecutor used "subliminal messaging" in closing arguments by showing an autopsy photo of Martha Moxley while playing an audio recording of Skakel's account of that night.

Kavanewsky rejected that argument as well, and a prosecution source told CNN, "It wasn't subliminal, it was blatant."



 
 
 
 


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