By Alaine Griffin, The Hartford Courant –
SUFFIELD, Conn. — Even before the Connecticut state Board of Pardons and Paroles denied his release from prison Wednesday, Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel was looking ahead to yet another bid for freedom.
Skakel, 52, insisted to the three board members he faced during the two-hour hearing that he is innocent of the 1975 murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley.
In a calm voice — cracking only when he became tearful while talking about his teenage son — Skakel said he planned to continue to press for his release in April, when hearings on a petition he filed for a writ of habeas corpus is scheduled to start.
Skakel based the petition — often a convict’s last resort to get a verdict overturned or prison sentence reduced — on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Skakel’s lawyer, Hope C. Seeley, who did not represent him at his trial in 2002 when he was sentenced to 20 years-to-life for Martha’s murder, said Skakel is not giving up.
“We will do everything in our power to make sure Michael Skakel will get a new trial,” Seeley said. Skakel is a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy.
Seeley said she was disappointed that the parole board Wednesday rejected testimony from both Skakel and his supporters that portrayed him as a loving father, a selfless inmate who teaches English to fellow prisoners and paints portraits of the children they don’t see. Skakel spoke much of how he has stayed sober for three decades in spite of his troubled past.
“Unfortunately, keeping Michael Skakel incarcerated for one more day compounds the miscarriage of justice that’s gone on in this case,” Seeley said.
Board Chairwoman Erika Tindill said the decision to keep Skakel in prison was not based on Skakel’s risk to re-offend but on the opinion of the panel that his release after 10 years is “incompatible with the welfare of society and to the community to which you would return.”
She said the board will review Skakel’s case again in October 2017, when he will again be eligible for parole.
Once the decision was announced, Skakel, stout, with graying hair, wearing a tan prison jumpsuit, looked back at his brothers, Steven and John, before leaving the visiting room at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, where the hearing was held. He appeared to hold back tears as he was escorted back to his prison cell.
John Moxley, Martha’s brother, who traveled from New Jersey with his 80-year-old mother, Dorthy, to attend Wednesday’s hearing, called the decision a “hollow victory.”
“There’s no upside to any of this. So what? He got another five years. Martha’s not coming back,” said Moxley.”
He said his family has relived the murder of his sister in each of the series of hearings on appeals and quests for a reduced sentence since Skakel’s conviction 10 years ago. Each hearing has taken a toll on his family.
“The more times I make this trip to upstate Connecticut, the more angry I get,” he said. “I would prefer to see (Skakel) spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Skakel was convicted in June 2002 of killing Martha in the Greenwich community of Belle Haven on Oct. 30, 1975, when they were both 15 and neighbors. Although Skakel’s older brother, Thomas, and a tutor of the Skakel children named Kenneth Littleton came under police suspicion, the case remained unsolved for nearly a quarter-century.
A one-man grand jury investigation into the murder began in 1998, giving states attorneys the power to subpoena witnesses for the first time. Many of the witnesses were former classmates of Skakel’s at a Maine school he attended for troubled teenagers. They would later testify at trial about statements Skakel allegedly made at that time, in the years immediately after Moxley’s murder, implicating himself in the crime.
The grand jury investigation ended in December 1999, and Skakel was arrested in January 2000 when he was 39. Because he was 15 at the time of the crime, Skakel’s case first went to juvenile court where he would have faced a maximum sentence of four years. But his case was transferred to adult court a year later.
Skakel told the board he believed admitting to Moxley’s murder would give him “the best chance” of “getting paroled.”
“But 10 1/2 years later, I can’t do that,” Skakel said. “If I could ease (Martha’s mother, Dorthy’s) Mrs. Moxley’s pain in any way, shape or form, I would take responsibility for this crime.”
He said he prays to God and Martha that whoever did the crime “will be brought to justice.”
“It just isn’t me,” Skakel said as Tindill and board members David May and Pamela Richards, listened.
Before noting the milestones in his life, testimony often presented at parole hearings, Skakel told the board, “I don’t care about accomplishments. I care about the truth.” He said Thursday marks 30 years of sobriety for him.
“How could a guilty man stay sober for 30 years with that kind of guilt on their mind?” Skakel asked.
Skakel said he needed to be free to care for his 13-year-old son, George, particularly because his ex-wife and the boy’s mother, Margo, has cancer. When she visited the prison recently, he noticed the toll her illness has taken. Skakel said he hardly recognized her.
“And that scares the hell out of me for my son,” Skakel said.
When Dorthy Moxley spoke, she directly addressed Skakel as he stared straight ahead at board members.
Though she said she had sympathy for Skakel — her mother also died when she was young and she also suffered from dyslexia and passed it along to her son — Moxley urged the board to keep Skakel in prison for 20 years.
“And if he continues along this line of helping others and doing good deeds, then he should possibly be able to do those things after that,” Moxley said.
She added through tears, “When they sentenced Michael Skakel to 20 years to life, the 20 years was a very kind sentence to give to him. Martha, my baby, will never have a life.”
Moxley told Skakel she hopes he never has to endure the death of a child.
“To lose a child is the worst thing in the world,” she said.
