He was convicted for being associated with the rich white ruling class. Prosecuted with a zealous hatred.
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Greenwich Connecticut Police Department, fawning extreme deference towards their obscenely affluent overlords,deserving maximum blame—amateur sleaths bungling routine murder investigation NYPD would have easily solved.
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I've been reading about this case since the beginning and it has always seemed odd. Heavy money involved? Too be sure. But the comment that, the recent ruling "...cited the shortcomings of Mr. Skakel’s trial lawyer and noted that the conviction was founded on a case 'devoid of any forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony linking the petitioner to the crime.' is more telling to me.
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Skakel' was in no way exonerated. His conviction was overturned based on alleged ineffectiveness of his counsel. Skakel had the money to pay for the best defense attorneys in the country, And then, after he is convicted, the money to pay for more attorneys to accuse his previous attorneys of incompetence. What a scam.
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@JoJoJohnson
This is all too common among low-income defendants. Ineffective counsel that results in conviction or worse a defendant with little means is encouraged to take a plea- which can almost never be overturned. And overturned can be applicable to truly innocent as well The conviction principle is reasonable doubt, not proof of innocence. Unfortunately low income defendants don't have the money for good defense or appeal attorneys so they stay in prison.
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A dissent based on the advantages of money does nothing to address the true issue. Defendants without money deserve the same expert (and expensive) defense as those with money, whether they are a minority or Caucasian. Skakel was tried as an adult although the alleged crime was committed when he was 15. He spent 11 years in prison so I would hardly say he got away with anything. Marty Tankleff spent 20 years in prison for allegedly killing his parents until he was determined to have been railroaded by police. He also had plenty of money but was no match for prosecutorial and police shenanigans.
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Justice Carmen Espinosa is right that the vast majority....etc.etc. deserve better treatment, but it doesn't mean rich people don't deserve a fair trial also.
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The "optics" for the greater public's perception of the integrity of the Connecticut Supreme Court are certainly terrible: Its relatively quick reversal of a previous Court's decision, upholding Skakel's trial conviction, after the retirement of the Justice who authored that decision by a new Justice who voted to reverse that previous decision. Justice Espinosa's "lacerating dissent" to that reversal, speaking to issues of "wealth and prominent connections" arising from this case exacerbate the validity of that public perception.
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It is interesting how this case has twisted and turned over the years. Everyone in Greenwich who wasn’t a Kennedy at the time thought it was one of the Skakel boys, and was astonished when nothing was ever done. As always, money talked. Justice walked.
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I guess I don't understand the point of the dissenting judges opinion. Yes, it's true that the wealthy have more resources to try and avoid an unjust conviction. But does that mean that the wealthy don't deserve justice, which seems to be what she's saying, or that the system should be radically changed so that no defendant lacks the resources to properly defend themselves?
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If he had been tried as a juvenile (at 15) would he have done eleven years? I think in this case his notoriety worked against him, in that his prosecutor got his name in the papers and got a conviction on fairly slim evidence. But, a lot of the evidence pointed to him and why not let the jury decide? And, he admitted to being in the area because he left his DNA at the murder site, giving him, (supposedly), plausible deniability? Why do that, if there wasn’t a thread of malfeasance? And, of course, there was a life sentence, Ms. Moxley’s parents endured having their young daughter brutally murdered.
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Skakel may be out but he is still identified with the crime. No amount of money can erase that....
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Martha, we hardly knew you, but some of us will not forget.
We will remember you. We will remember Jo Kopechne.
The powers that Espinosa describes so well may wipe the
sentence clean but they cannot wipe the slate.
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This pales in comparison to the Chappaquiddick incident where Edward Kennedy drove his car while drunk into the water, killed his girlfriend Mary Jo Kopechne and waited 10 hours after the death to report the accident presumably so the alcohol level in his blood came down. He was let go without any prison time. So when the democrats complain too much about Trump, they should be reminded about their liberal heroes and their shortcomings. A different law applies to the rich than the poor. This applies to Republican country as well as Democratic country.
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@Rahul
There has never been a shred of evidence that Kennedy was drunk when this accident happened or that it involved anything but a respectful ride home for a campaign worker.
Evidence or make-believe?
Shall we all just decide for ourselves what happened base on what something looks like? Have it your way.
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It's certainly true that wealth and connections -- along with simply being white -- can get you a better outcome in our courts. But that's simply the flip-side of saying that if you lack those things, you're more likely to get railroaded.
After reading Robert Kennedy Jr.'s 2003 piece in the Atlantic examining in detail the evidence and the circumstances surrounding the case, I can only conclude that Mr. Skakel's access to money and connections failed to save him from an utter miscarriage of justice. They merely shortened it.
12
"But Justice Carmen E. Espinosa offered a lacerating dissent in which she argued that the case had underscored how much wealth and prominent connections had served to benefit Mr. Skakel. "
She's right, of course. A poor defendant would still be serving a life sentence. In this case, it's not about race, though that sometimes matters as well. It's about the advantages of money and political power. Reminds me of the OJ Simpson trial.
In the US, we accept letting many guilty go free, to avoid the risks of falsely convicting the innocent. That's the right choice, and we shouldn't forget this.
In this case, 25 years is a long time to wait for a trial. There is no statute of limitations for murder, and it might in a few cases be possible to obtain a fair conviction 25 years after the fact; for example, if there was carefully curated DNA evidence. But in the large majority of circumstances, especially in trials based on circumstantial evidence, it's not possible to hold a fair trial a quarter of a century after the fact.
A key question, of course, is whether the police and prosecutors should have been more thorough in 1975. This is an important issue, but one it's far too late to address in a legally meaningful way.
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@Alex
"A key question, of course, is whether the police and prosecutors should have been more thorough in 1975. This is an important "
I recall that at the time of the murder, the Skakels refused to allow law enforcement to investigate on their property. It was a bit of a stink that the mega-rich could order the police about. They had something to hide. I think the "mystery killer" in this case is the same one in the OJ case, Mr. Non-existent.
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@LM You should read the Robert Kennedy piece. He says the truth was quite the opposite.
@LM And the police did NOT attempt to obtain a search warrant?
People who are talking about wealth and power on this thread sure are not kidding!
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