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CNN Live Today

Michael Skakel Convicted of Murder

Aired June 07, 2002 - 14:02   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: For much of the day live here on CNN, we have been following the guilty verdict that was handed down earlier today in the Michael Skakel murder trial.

Our Deborah Feyerick has been outside the courtroom in Norwalk, Connecticut, and she joins us live now with the latest.

Deb, hello once again.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Daryn.

Well, Michael Skakel walked into this courthouse as he has every day for the last month, his head held high, just walking in, opening the door, but he left in a very different way. His hands were handcuffed, he walked into the back of a Marshal van, and then he was taken away to Bridgeport Correctional Facility where he will await sentencing.

Now as the guilty verdict was read, Michael Skakel stood frozen, stunned, disbelief. The Moxley family, however, began sobbing, hugging each other. They have waited a very long time for justice for their 15-year-old daughter who was brutally beaten to death with a golf club.

Mrs. Moxley spoke to the press afterwards saying she felt that yes, there was now justice for Martha.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DORTHY MOXLEY, MARTHA'S MOTHER: I wrote a little prayer and my prayer started out, you know, dear Lord, again today, like we've been doing for -- like I've been doing for 27 years, I am praying that I can find justice for Martha. You know this whole thing was about Martha. Anyway, and I just -- I just -- you know I am so -- I am -- I just feel so blessed and so overwhelmed that we've actually -- we now -- you know this is Martha's day. This is truly Martha's day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And pictures of Martha Moxley were shown to the jury throughout this entire trial, a smiling, pretty girl with a whole life in front of her. That is definitely something that the jury took note of. They deliberated a full three days. They decided unanimously that Michael Skakel was guilty. We spoke to several alternate jurors. They said that the circumstantial evidence was simply overwhelming, that however what did Michael Skakel in where his own words, a proposed biography in which Skakel places himself at various points of the crime that night.

Michael Skakel's lawyer, Mickey Sherman, says he will appeal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICKEY SHERMAN, SKAKEL'S ATTORNEY: I believe in Michael Skakel. I believe Michael Skakel. Like I said earlier, he didn't do it. He doesn't have a clue who did. He wasn't there. He never confessed. I meant it then. I meant it -- mean it now. And I'm going to mean it in the next six months to three years or whatever it takes to get him out of custody. And it will happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Mickey Sherman at the podium there was surrounded by three of Michael Skakel's brothers.

Now at the start of this trial, a lot of people who knew what some of the evidence was really didn't think prosecutors had much of a chance. But prosecutors all along knew they had an ace up their sleeve.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN BENEDICT, PROSECUTOR: The defendant's own words are what did him in. And where they came from, you know, the three or four Elan witnesses were extremely helpful. They're the ones that really got the show on the road. His last words that we know of to Richard Hoffman (ph), of course, you know he kind of walked himself to (ph) the crime scene with that. I'm sure that had a major impact with the jury's deliberations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Michael Skakel will be sentenced on July 19. Minimum sentence 10 years, maximum 25 years to life. His lawyer had asked for bail. The judge denied it. Mickey Sherman says he will appeal -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And, Deborah, what will go into the sentencing for the judge to decide?

FEYERICK: The judge is going to have a lot of things to weigh. And again, this is a very unique case, because as you remember, this was initially to have been tried in juvenile court. The prosecutors successfully moved it from juvenile court here to an adult court. So the guidelines are very sort of murky because he was only 15 at the time that this crime was committed. And so the judge is going to have to evaluate that. And he's definitely going to be calling in legal help, again because it was a juvenile crime when it happened, it was sentenced in adult court. So how many years should he serve, that's the big question. And, Daryn, if this had been tried in juvenile court at the time the murder took place, he would have only faced about four years and likely he would have gone to the very same school where he went and where some of those admissions were made.

KAGAN: And just real quickly, Deb, refresh my memory, was a plea bargain ever an option in this case?

FEYERICK: A plea bargain was never on the table at any point in time. Michael Skakel's lawyer had always said his client is innocent. And he said that it wasn't because of anything other than the fact that he did not do it.

Last week, and this was interesting, prosecutors made a very brief attempt to perhaps have the jury consider manslaughter charges. Some people said well they don't believe in the confidence of their case, but other people said no. And then the prosecutors pulled that off the table because they knew that if they did put manslaughter there as an option, then this would have been immediate grounds for appeal. As it is there are sufficient grounds now for Sherman to appeal.

KAGAN: And he was very clear that he plans to do just that.

Deborah Feyerick in Norwalk, Connecticut, thank you very much.

Let's go to our other half who has been helping us follow this throughout the day and that is our legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin who is in New York.

And I think, Jeff, if I'm not mistaken, when the verdict came out your jaw dropped to about your knees.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I was surprised. I -- you know I watched -- I watched this trial. I've been following this case for a long time. It was a circumstantial case. It's a very old case. It relies tremendously on confessions by the defendant that were taken -- that took place under disputed circumstances.

But I think Jonathan Benedict really won this case on summation. I've seen a lot of trials. I have never seen a case come together better in a summation than in Jonathan Benedict's when he took all the dispersed (ph) parts of this evidence collected over literally decades and pulled it together for the jury. He pointed out things that I didn't notice in the evidence. And it was -- it was a stunningly successful summation. And remember the jury asked to hear that summation again yesterday. The judge wouldn't allow it, but I think that's an illustration of just how much they were impacted by that -- by the prosecutor's words.

KAGAN: Did you happen to hear -- did you happen to hear when Deborah Feyerick was able to interview Jonathan Benedict afterwards and he said I think I caught the defense with their pant's down basically is what he said?

TOOBIN: I think he did. I very much heard that. And I thought that was, you know, typical of his candor. Because what he did in his summation was he used Skakel's interview with the ghostwriter for his book. He referred to a Richard Hoffman. He -- Skakel gave tape recorded interviews to Richard Hoffman and they were played very quickly in court. No one paid much attention to the details. But what Benedict did in summation is he went through the account on -- that Skakel gave to the ghostwriter bit by bit of the night in question and he showed in point after point how Skakel lied or put himself in places that incriminated him. And I think it was the use of that statement that was absolutely critical.

In fact in Deborah's interview with the alternate,...

KAGAN: Right.

TOOBIN: ... the alternate also mentioned how important that was. And I think the defense didn't realize how much Benedict was going to use those tape recorded statements, and it was extremely effective.

KAGAN: Also in that interview that Deborah Feyerick was able to do with that alternate juror, she mentioned some other things that you had predicted, not just the closing arguments, but the alibi. She didn't buy Michael Skakel's alibi that he wasn't at home.

TOOBIN: Right. And the main corroborating witnesses for -- the only corroborating witnesses for the alibi were Michael Skakel's relatives. And in their testimony, those relatives, they remembered one thing about the night of the murder that Michael Skakel was at his cousins house. They didn't remember anything else. And, frankly, they weren't very good witnesses because of it because the obvious question was how do you remember one thing and nothing else? And the alternate said, and I expect the jurors will say, that they simply thought that the relatives were lying to cover up for their cousin.

And again, the read backs they asked for, the evidence they asked to hear again were the witnesses who discredited Skakel's alibi testimony. And they obviously believed that the alibi simply didn't hold up.

KAGAN: And speaking of those relatives, also Jonathan Benedict, the prosecutor, seemed not just only not satisfied with the verdict he got today, he seemed to suggest in his comments outside the courthouse and again with Deborah Feyerick, he said ask yourself who else might have been involved here? Not to say that someone else was involved in the murder of Martha Moxley, but perhaps in the cover up and the cleanup, implicating other members of the Skakel family.

TOOBIN: He was very -- again, Jonathan Benedict is a very candid guy. And he said, come on, he didn't clean -- I don't think he cleaned this mess up himself. And he pointed out that Skakel's cousin, James Terrian Dowdle (ph), his whereabouts were unknown during part of this -- during part of the evening in question. So he is obviously pointing the finger at the Skakel family for a cover up.

It's worth pointing out, however, that even if he wanted to prosecute any members of the family at this point, the statute of limitations has long lapsed on anything except murder so there's nothing that can be done about that.

KAGAN: Just some implications. Well this is a mess 27 years in the making. The next chapter, July 19 when Michael Skakel will be sentenced.

Jeffrey Toobin, thanks for all your help today. Really appreciate it.

TOOBIN: Sure thing.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Boy, can understand why some of the family members were saying this is a hollow victory for them.

KAGAN: Yes.

HARRIS: Boy.

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