HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The Latest on a court ordering a new trial for Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel (all times local):
4 p.m.
A brother of the girl whom Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel was accused of bludgeoning to death as a teenager says it is too soon to say what the family would want to have happen next in the case.
The Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday vacated Skakel’s murder conviction in the 1975 slaying of Martha Moxley. The ruling calls for a new trial.
John Moxley says that hours before the ruling was issued, he had been talking with his elderly mother about how the case had been going on for half her life. He says he is not sure how much more strength she can put into pursuing the case.
Moxley says he was disappointed with the ruling and disagrees with the court opinion that Skakel had not received adequate assistance from a defense attorney.
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3:45
The Connecticut Supreme Court has vacated Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel’s murder conviction and ordered a new trial in connection with a 1975 killing in wealthy Greenwich.
The court issued a 4-3 ruling Friday that Skakel’s trial attorney, Michael Sherman, failed to present evidence of an alibi. The decision reversed the court’s previous ruling that reinstated Skakel’s conviction after a lower court had ordered a new trial.
Skakel is a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy. He was convicted of murder in 2002 in the bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley in their wealthy Greenwich neighborhood in 1975, when they were teenagers.
He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, but another judge granted him a new trial in 2013, citing mistakes by his trial lawyer.
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