Posted on 06/07/2002 7:59:15 AM PDT by LoneGOPinCT
The jury in the Skakel murder trial has reached a verdict and have begun assembling. Nothing announced yet.
If any one would like to be removed from my CT Bump list, please let me know and it will be done ASAP. Conversely, if you would like to be added the same holds true.
The case wasn't proven. There was no physical evidence, just the thirty year old memories of a gaggle of shakey witnesses.
The donut-munching, starstruck, Greenwich police force had no interest in upsetting the Kennedys. If they did, Skakel would be facing a parole hearing about now, rather than a trial.
Well, blow me down.
Are they SURE? FOX is interviewing people who weren't exactly in the courtroom (heard it in the hallway?)
The jury reheard the judge's instructions on laws regarding reasonable doubt, motive and alibi Thursday. Skakel's lawyer, Michael Sherman, said the jury's requests suggest it is nearing a decision.
''I think they're getting close,'' Sherman said. ''They're getting down to the nitty-gritty.''
Thursday's deliberations ended after Judge John F. Kavanewsky Jr. denied their request to rehear part of the prosecution's closing arguments, because it is not considered evidence. Skakel, 41, is accused of beating Martha Moxley to death with a golf club in October 1975, when they were 15-year-old neighbors in a wealthy gated community in Greenwich. He is a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of former U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy.
In their closing arguments, prosecutors had played a tape of a 1997 interview Skakel gave to an author and tried to use Skakel's own words to place him at the crime scene.
As they spoke, a picture of a smiling Moxley projected on a courtroom screen dissolved into a grim crime scene photo.
Susann Gill, a lawyer on the prosecution team, argued in favor of the jurors' request to rehear the arguments.
''The state can see no prejudice in having the jury hear again what they already heard,'' Gill said.
But Sherman said the arguments are interpretations, not evidence.
''Merely because they're asking for something doesn't mean they should get it,'' he said.
Earlier Thursday, jurors reheard testimony of three witnesses, including a former Skakel friend who said Skakel had a crush on Moxley and forensics expert Henry Lee. Under cross-examination by Sherman, Lee said he had no direct evidence to tie Skakel to the murder.
The panel dropped a request to rehear the May 16 testimony of John Higgins, who said that Skakel confessed to killing Moxley during a tearful conversation at a residential substance abuse treatment center in the late 1970s.
Skakel's defense says he was visiting a cousin in another part of Greenwich when the murder was most likely committed.
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