CT - Michael Skakel & the murder of Martha Moxley, Greenwich, 1975 *Not Guilty*

In his new book, “Framed,” Kennedy maintains that Hasbrouck and a friend, Burton Tinsley, are Martha’s killers, not Skakel.

Hasbrouck grew up in the South Bronx in the 1970s. “My mother taught me character, integrity. That’s how I have conducted my life,” says Hasbrouck, who served in the Army. Now 56, he has been married for 20 years and lives in Bridgeport, Connecticut. For the past 15 years, he has worked as a network operations supervisor at ABC in Manhattan.

“Then in 2003 along comes a telephone call from Bobby Kennedy,” he said. “Do I know Martha Moxley? I tell him I never met her. He asks, do I know Tony Bryant? Yes, I say, I knew Tony Bryant. He asked for Burt Tinsley’s telephone number and asked if it was possible that we talk again. I thought nothing of it. I had no indication of his plan to use me as a scapegoat in his cousin’s defense.”

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In front of a packed house, an attorney working for Michael Skakel offered his reasoning why he thinks a judge’s decision to free the man accused of murdering a local teen-ager in 1975 won’t be overturned and why he believes Skakel is innocent.

Michael Fitzpatrick, who assisted in the legal strategy that freed Skakel, did not make any guarantees or definitive predictions, but suggested why the court in Hartford might not overturn Bishop’s ruling that Skakel did not get a fair trial. He noted Bishop’s extensive legal training in the field, as well as the respect he commands in legal circles.

“Looking at prior decisions, I don’t believe we can necessarily tell which way the court will rule,” the lawyer said. “But it’s my belief that when a decision is written by a judge (Bishop) who’s considered a leading authority .... a decision he believes is supported by the facts and the law ... that decision will be respected by the Supreme Court. Given the stature of the judge that decided this case, there’s a high probability that the court will uphold the decision.”

Fitzpatrick was asked why the Supreme Court’s decision was taking so much time. Fitzpatrick noted that the state court was typically under-staffed, adding clerical delays to the process. In addition, briefs are being submitted in the case that are 300 pages in length, and the Supreme Court had a number of other complicated, serious criminal matters to consider this year that pushed the Skakel case down the list.

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A divided state Supreme Court Friday reinstated the murder conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, rejecting a Superior Court judge's finding that Skakel's trial was tainted by ineffective lawyering and setting the stage for Skakel's return to prison after three years of freedom.

"Because we conclude that the petitioner's trial counsel rendered constitutionally adequate representation, we reverse the judgment" of the lower court, a 4-3 majority of the Supreme Court wrote in a decision released Friday afternoon.

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A divided state Supreme Court Friday reinstated the murder conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, rejecting a Superior Court judge's finding that Skakel's trial was tainted by ineffective lawyering and setting the stage for Skakel's return to prison after three years of freedom.

"Because we conclude that the petitioner's trial counsel rendered constitutionally adequate representation, we reverse the judgment" of the lower court, a 4-3 majority of the Supreme Court wrote in a decision released Friday afternoon.

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PastTense said:

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-michael-skakel-supreme-court-appeal-20161229-story.html

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Lawyers for Michael Skakel are coming forward with what they say may be a new piece of evidence that could have an effect on resolution of the long-running case: a golf club handle, purportedly found 7 miles away from the place where Moxley, 15, was found dead.

The golf club handle was reportedly found at the residence of the Terrien family, where Michael Skakel and other young people were watching television on the night Moxley, a Greenwich High School sophomore, was killed. Skakel was watching a Monty Python movie with his cousin, James Terrien, that night.

Defense lawyer Stephan Seeger said he had been contacted late last year by a local attorney who had heard about the existence of the golf club handle. The attorney provided the names of three people who had come across the handle, which was purportedly turned over to Greenwich police in 1999, the year the investigation into Moxley’s death was re-instituted.

“They had formed the opinion that it had something to do with the murder. That’s why they brought it there (to police). They thought it was connected to the murder,” Seeger said.

It was unclear why the golf club handle at the Terrien estate was viewed as being linked to the crime. Seeger is seeking to depose two people who had information about the handle: Philip Drake, now 91, a Terrien family lawyer, and the daughter of the Terrien’s property manager, Barbara Roome Waleski, 57, of Lancaster, Pa. The property manager, Peter Roome, died late last month at the age of 91.

Seeger said Roome and his daughter went to police headquarters in 1999 and turned over the golf club piece to Greenwich police. According to court papers filed by Seeger on Thursday, the handle has not been located, and any police report on the matter was not discovered, either.

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JusticeWillBeServed said:

Skakel lawyers say there may be new evidence in Moxley murder case

http://www.greenwichtime.com/local/article/Skakel-lawyers-say-there-may-be-new-evidence-in-11072119.php

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Snoods said:

Wow, surprised to hear this. I could never be sure if he or his brother committed Martha's murder. I believe one of them did.

The Kennedy cousin who constantly speaks out for Michael Skakel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, is so annoying. Yeah, we get it, he wants his cousin free, but dial it back a notch, dude. It's like they forget there is a victim in all of this, a young girl
was brutally murdered.

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In the latest twist in a case that has been full of them, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the murder conviction of Michael C. Skakel, who was found guilty in 2002 of bludgeoning a teenage neighbor with a golf club, should be reinstated.

The court said in making its ruling that Mr. Skakel’s original lawyer had, despite accusations to the contrary, represented him effectively.
The decision could send Mr. Skakel back to prison to finish a prison term of 20 years to life. He had spent more than a decade behind bars before he was released in 2013 when a judge vacated his original sentence.

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In Monday’s petition to the Supreme Court, prosecutor James Killen wrote the court’s usual practice is to rule on a request to reconsider a decision within weeks, and it’s not clear why it is taking so long. “The petitioner has enjoyed more than a year of additional freedom from serving his sentence, with only the most minimal restrictions on his liberty,” Killen wrote.

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Prosecutors appealed the lower court ruling to the state Supreme Court, which reinstated the conviction in December 2016 in a 4-3 ruling. Skakel’s lawyers asked the high court to reconsider the decision — a request that remains pending.

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The state Supreme Court, in a rebuff to prosecutors, has ruled that accused killer Michael Skakel can remain free on bail while the court considers his most recent appeal.

The Supreme Court denied the prosecution’s request to return Skakel to prison without elaboration in a one-sentence order made public Thursday.

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