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American Morning

Chauffeur Testifies in Skakel Trial

Aired May 17, 2002 - 07:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

Just when you thought the Skakel trial couldn't get any weirder, another bizarre twist at the murder trial of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel. In court yesterday, Skakel's one-time chauffeur testified that years after Martha Moxley's murder he learned the defendant had a deep, dark secret that nearly drove Skakel to take his own life.

Joining us now to talk more about the Skakel murder trial, CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin -- did you have your seat belt on yesterday? It's weird.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Every day it seems like I come here and say it was the strangest day I ever saw. But another strange day yesterday.

ZAHN: Tell us about the testimony and how relevant it was.

TOOBIN: OK. Well the testimony from the limo driver, he says Skakel -- this is about 1978, a few years after the murder -- says, "I did something terrible. I have to kill myself." He winds up not killing himself.

It's sort of vague. In fact, Mickey Sherman said the testimony shouldn't even be allowed because it was so vague. But on cross- examination, Mickey Sherman, the defense lawyer, really dropped a bombshell in the courtroom. He said, "Did you know that the day before, Michael Skakel had slept in the dress of his dead mother?"

Now, before you can say Anthony Perkins in "Psycho," he said, "No I didn't know that." Later, Mickey Sherman said in court -- he said he misspoke in court. He said, "slept with the dress of his dead mother."

But it goes to the theme that Sherman has been exploiting, which is there were other problems in his life. It is not just about the murder. That after his mother's death in 1973, two years before the murder, that was set him off on to drinking and all sorts of other problems. But I mean it was surely one of the more bizarre facts or alleged facts ever disclosed in this thing.

ZAHN: Also, some stunning testimony from a former friend of Michael Skakel's who went into drug rehab with him at this Elan school. TOOBIN: Right. This is really the heart of the prosecution case, these so-called "confessions." And here, John Higgins testified that in a sort of heart-to-heart talk in 1978 they were sitting in a -- you know, by one of these bunks in Maine. And he said, "Well, I don't know whether I did it. I was drunk. I'm not sure -- well, I did it."

And, you know, that is -- I mean it was an actual confession. Now the jury had ample opportunity to believe it or not to believe it, because Higgins hadn't been truthful about it in the past. And, again, Sherman was developing the theme that this school really wanted him to confess; that that was his therapy. That they used to abuse him. It was full of testimony about how there was all this abuse of the students.

And Sherman's theme was, well, he kept -- that they were abusing him in order to get him to admit his responsibility for the murder.

ZAHN: So how compelling will any of this be to a juror?

TOOBIN: It's so hard to judge.

ZAHN: I know it's hard to read their faces and their gestures.

TOOBIN: This is really the best the prosecution has. Because remember the physical evidence, all the evidence about the crime scene, about the day of the murder, none of that really links to Michael Skakel at all. The prosecution is putting all its chips on these confessions, and they're problematic.

The good thing for the prosecution is that there are several of them. I mean there's this Gregory Coleman who died last year, who testified in a preliminary hearing the most incendiary evidence of all. He said that Skakel said to him, "I'll get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy." Now, again, who knows whether to believe this guy.

ZAHN: But that guy was a drug abuser, too.

TOOBIN: He actually died of a heroin overdose. And he admitted that when he was in the grand jury he was actually on heroin at the time. So all of these witnesses have problems, but remember there are a lot of them. I mean one of the things that the prosecution has going for it is that any individual might be discredited, but can they all be discredited? That's going to be the prosecution argument.

ZAHN: Stay tuned. We'll count on you next week.

TOOBIN: Next week.

ZAHN: Jeffrey Toobin, have a good weekend -- thanks.

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