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Michael Skakel — the Kennedy cousin who spent more than a decade in prison for the 1975 murder of his teenage Connecticut neighbor before he was sprung on procedural grounds — is suing the town of Greenwich and its lead police investigator over claims he was locked behind bars in a targeted attack. The lawsuit claims investigators pinned the slaying on Skakel for their own personal and financial gain. Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy, was convicted of 15-year-old Martha Moxley’s murder in 2002 and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, but was released...

Political activist Robert Kennedy Jr. warned that a "society in fear" due to the COVID-19 pandemic could result in the "complete obliteration of critical thinking." Kennedy, who spoke at the Ron Paul Institute's conference, noted that only a small fraction of the individuals comprising the CDC's COVID-19 death total died primarily from COVID-19. "Among 378,048 death certificates from 2020 listing COVID-19 as a cause of death, 5.5% listed COVID-19 without codes for any other conditions," according to the CDC. "The people who died, 96% of them, had almost 400 reasons that might have killed them," Kennedy said during a session...

A curfew in Philadelphia tonight from 9pm to 6am. Streets in the downtown area closed. Members of the Pennsylvania National Guard deployed... A federal judge in Portland granting a preliminary injunction saying that federal officers denied First Amendment rights to peaceful protesters... Walmart removing firearms and ammunition from display floors...Today Walmart reversing course... The country with the highest coronavirus infection rate in Europe moving to a national lockdown. Belgium shutting down... In Canada Winnipeg the largest city in Manitoba moving to a Code Red coronavirus lockdown... An earthquake measuring 7.0 struck off the coast of Turkey today... The current UK...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court announced Monday that it is leaving in place a decision that vacated a murder conviction against Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel. Skakel was convicted in 2002 of the 1975 bludgeoning death of Martha Moxley, a 15-year-old who lived across the street from the Skakel family in Greenwich, Connecticut, and whose body was found in her family’s backyard. Both Skakel and Moxley were 15 at the time of her death. The high court’s refusal to hear the case means that a 2018 decision by Connecticut’s highest court throwing out Skakel’s conviction will stand. Connecticut’s highest court...

Sixteen months ago, the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated the conviction, but then reversed itself on Friday and granted Skakel a new trial. In an interview with "Today" on Monday, attorney Michael Fitzpatrick said defense

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) - The Connecticut Supreme Court has overturned the 1975 murder conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel. The Hartford Courant reports that the Connecticut Supreme Court voted 4-3 that Skakel's trial lawyer was so ineffective, that his right to a fair trial was violated. Skakel was convicted in the murder of his friend, Martha Moxley, when the two were neighbors in Greenwich. Skakel has been free since late 2013 while the court considered this latest appeal. He is expected to remain free unless state prosecutors make what many lawyers predict would be an unlikely decision to retry him...

(CNN)Michael Skakel could be headed back to prison after the Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday reinstated his conviction in the 1975 murder of a 15-year-old neighbor. Skakel, the 56-year-old nephew of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, had spent more than a decade in prison for the killing of Martha Moxley until a judge in 2013 decided he did not receive adequate representation in his trial and ordered a new one. On Friday, after Skakel had been free for three years, the state's high court overruled the decision. "Because we conclude that the petitioner's trial counsel rendered constitutionally adequate representation, we reverse...

HARTFORD, Conn. — A divided Connecticut 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. Skakel was convicted in 2002 in the bludgeoning death 27 years earlier of Greenwich neighbor Martha Moxley, when she and...

On the 39th anniversary of the 1975 slaying of Greenwich teenager Martha Moxley, the Kennedy scion accused of her murder is set to settle a slander lawsuit against television host Nancy Grace. In a stipulation of settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Hartford on Wednesday, legal counsel for Michael Skakel agreed to drop his case against the HLN pundit and fellow legal commentator Beth Karas for comments they made in a 2012 broadcast about DNA evidence near the scene of the crime. HLN parent companies Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting System were also named in the defamation suit and...

Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel was granted a new trial on Wednesday by a Connecticut judge who ruled his attorney failed to adequately represent him when he was convicted in 2002 of killing his neighbor in 1975. The ruling by Judge Thomas Bishop marked a dramatic reversal after years of unsuccessful appeals by Skakel, the 52-year-old nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow, Ethel Kennedy. Skakel is serving 20 years to life. … Skakel argued his trial attorney, Michael Sherman, was negligent in defending him when he was convicted in the golf club bludgeoning of Martha Moxley when they were 15 in...

The Supreme Court on Monday let stand the murder conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, who is serving a prison term of at least 20 years. The justices declined, without comment, to take Skakel's appeal of his conviction in the beating death of his Greenwich, Conn., neighbor, Martha Moxley, 31 years ago when the two were teenagers. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was convicted in 2002. Now 46, Skakel is serving 20 years to life in prison. "We're very pleased," said prosecutor Jonathan Benedict. "This has been researched for years. This is not unexpected." Skakel's lawyer, former Solicitor General...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The 1975 murder of Martha Moxley set in motion more than a quarter century of grief and intrigue as the attractive teen's family waited for justice while two Kennedy cousins lived under a cloud of suspicion. The long delay in an arrest fueled suspicions of a powerful cover-up in a wealthy Connecticut town. Authorities ultimately charged one of the cousins, Michael Skakel, with bludgeoning Moxley with a golf club and accused his wealthy family of a cover-up to thwart his prosecution during a trial that led to his conviction in 2002. Now Skakel says he should...

NORWALK -- A judge yesterday rebuffed Michael Skakel's last-minute bid for a new trial, eliminating any chance the convicted murderer had to avoid a prison sentence and rejecting defense arguments that Skakel did not get a fair trial for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. In a packed courtroom filled with mostly familiar faces from the five-week trial this spring, Skakel's trial attorney, Michael Sherman, and his new appellate attorney, Hubert Santos, argued unsuccessfully that prosecutors withheld evidence and the judge erred when instructing the jury. Their client will be sentenced today by Superior Court Judge John Kavanewsky Jr. He...

(Norwalk-AP, May 7, 2002 6:05 AM) _ After 27 years of mystery, a Kennedy cousin is being tried in the murder of Greenwich teen-ager Martha Moxley. Watch the story from News Channel 8's Jodi Latina Michael Skakel's murder trial was scheduled to begin Tuesday _ an event some long-term observers doubted they would ever see. "This was such an intractable mystery for so long," said Timothy Dumas, who grew up in Greenwich and wrote a book about the crime. Now 41, Skakel is accused of beating Moxley to death with a golf club when the defendant and victim were 15-year-old...

Michael Sherman, the Stamford lawyer who will defend Michael Skakel during his upcoming murder trial, has drafted his 28-year-old son, Mark, to the defense team, rounding out a triumvirate that includes the elder Sherman and two 28-year-old associates. Mark Sherman, who was 2 years old and living in Stamford when Martha Moxley was killed with a golf club linked to the Skakel household, will join Jason Throne, also 28, who joined the firm Sherman & Richichi soon after Skakel was arrested in January 2000. From 1998 to 2000, Mark Sherman worked for Prior Cashman Sherman & Flynn, a New York...