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The Courthouse: Precautions Issued for Mailbox Bombs; Bottle Bomb in Maryland; Law to be Deposed
Aired May 06, 2002 - 20:00 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.
CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Charles Molineaux at the CNN Center in Atlanta. "LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE" with Bill Hemmer is just one minute away, but first, this brief news alert.
Officials are urging postal carriers and customers to take extra precautions following the discovery of even more mailbox bombs. Pipe bombs have turned up in two more towns, Salida, Colorado and Hastings, Nebraska. This comes after similar bombs turned up in Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois.
There's also news today of a bottle bomb blowing up in a mailbox in Waldorf, Maryland. Investigators say that one does not appear to be related to the other bombs.
The embattled cardinal of Boston, Bernard Law will be asked questions this week in the lawsuit over convicted child molesting ex- priest, John Geoghan. Today, a Massachusetts judge ordered Law to give a deposition as early as Wednesday. Eighty-six alleged victims of Geoghan are suing Boston's Catholic archdiocese.
Retired priest, Paul Shanley, meanwhile, is scheduled to be arraigned in a Massachusetts court tomorrow. He is accused of rapidly raping a boy over a period of seven years in the 1980s.
I'll be back at the half past the half hour with another look at the headlines. "LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE" with Bill Hemmer starts right now.
ANNOUNCER: It's a trial a quarter century in the making. A mysterious murder and a high profile defendant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was an all-American honors student with a bright smile. He's related to all- American royalty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Now, 26 years after Martha Moxley was found dead, Kennedy cousin, Michael Skakel, goes on trial for her murder. The case puts a posh town back in the spotlight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL SCHUDROFF, OWNER, CARRIAGE HOUSE MOTOR CARS: It's probably a different environment than anyplace else in America.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): Because...
SCHUDROFF: Of the type of people and the wealth that's here.
HINOJOSA: Really wealthy.
SCHUDROFF: Very wealthy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Another murder trial decades in the making gets under way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty-nine years have passed since that awful Sunday in 1963, that day when a bomb rocked the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE: MURDER, THE COURTS, AND THE COUNTRY. Now, here's Bill Hemmer.
BILL HEMMER, HOST: It has wealth, it has celebrity, and it has murder. It's an irresistible combination and good evening. We are in Norwalk, Connecticut tonight. That relatively small courthouse building you see behind me is where the attention of the country will be firmly focused tomorrow morning, 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time when opening statements begin in the murder trial of Martha Moxley. It has been 26 years, 1975, and tonight; Deborah Feyerick kicks off our coverage and why it took so long for this case to go to court.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK (voice-over): She was an all-American honors student with a bright smile. He's related to all-American royalty. Martha Moxley and Kennedy nephew, Michael Skakel, both 15 years old in 1975. Friends and neighbors hanging out together the night before Halloween, the last night Martha Moxley was alive.
She was brutally beaten to death with a golf club. The killer attacking her right outside her posh Greenwich, Connecticut home. There were suspects at the time. Skakel's 17-year-old brother, Tommy, once thought to have been the last person to see Moxley alive, also, a Skakel family tutor, Ken Littleton. He moved in with the Skakel's the day of the murder.
Investigators never had enough evidence to charge either one, and the murder remains the unsolved for two decades, but interest in the case never went away. There were books, movies, and TV whodunits, like "Unsolved Mysteries." UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ON the night before Halloween 1975...
FEYERICK: New witnesses came forward, and their testimony pointed to now middle-aged Michael Skakel. He was charged with Moxley's murder. After several hearings, the case moved out of juvenile to adult court. Not charged, the original suspects, Skakel's brother, Tommy, and tutor Ken Littleton. Littleton will likely take the stand early on in the trial. Prosecutors granting him full immunity.
Skakel's defense team is planning on playing tapes they say incriminates the ex-tutor. Littleton's' lawyer firing back...
EUGENE RICCO, KEN LITTLETON'S ATTORNEY: It's a strategy that the defense -- considering the history of this case, it's certainly going to do - I mean it's no surprise. You know the state investigated Littleton in terms of this homicide for years.
FEYERICK: Prosecutors admit investigators recruited the tutor's life in the early '90s to try to convince Littleton he confessed to the murder during a drunken blackout.
The story sounds familiar. At a hearing last year, former classmates testified Skakel confessed that he might have had something to do with the murder, also during a blackout. One of those witnesses saying the word "blackout" was originally used by investigators.
MICKEY SHERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The question is -- isn't it odd that what they have against Ken Littleton they seem to have against Michael Skakel?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK: On the jury, six men, six women. There's a lawyer, a cop, even a friend of a friend of Dorothy Moxley's. Michael Skakel's lawyer says this is not an O.J. jury. He says it's going to be an uphill climb, but he is absolutely convinced this jury will acquit his client Bill.
HEMMER: The defendant now is 41 years old. Clearly, he looks and acts nothing like he did when he was 15. Has the prosecution said how they can portray Michael Skakel as a 15-year-old knowing it's 26 years down the road?
FEYERICK: Well, they're absolutely going to have to do that. Michael Skakel, now, is a middle-aged man. He's a bit overweight, has suits that fit too tight and very subdued guy. His hair is graying. This is very different from Michael Skakel back in 1975, who was by all accounts a very rambunctious kid. He had a substance abuse problem. He bounced from one school to the next. And one headmaster described him as "rude, pushy, cocky, and terribly unstable." So the jury is really going to have to reconcile the Michael Skakel then and the Michael Skakel now.
HEMMER: Right. In March of 2000, there was an arraignment not here but nearby. After that arraignment, Michael Skakel approached Martha Moxley's mother, Dorothy, and said, "You've got the wrong guy." You were sitting right behind them when the conversation took place. Do you remember?
FEYERICK: Absolutely, yes, and Michael Skakel was very determined to get to Mrs. Moxley. He wanted to make a beeline to her to connect with her. She was very taken aback, very shocked, but he really just said, you know, "I feel your pain, but you've got the wrong guy." Mrs. Moxley and her family convinced that he is the one who killed their daughter and they really want justice.
HEMMER: Dorothy will be the first witness called by the prosecution. How critical is she beginning tomorrow?
FEYERICK: She is going to be very important. She is the one who puts a human face on this tragedy. She had two children; one of them was brutally taken away from her. Mrs. Moxley likely to testify about what happened that night, how she began frantically calling all of Martha's friends at 3:30 in the morning. She even called the Skakel residence where she was told that Martha had gone home about 9:30 because she had homework to do. She will even likely tell a story how -- about 10:00 at night, when Martha is supposed to have been murdered, that she heard a commotion at the side of the house, went to the window, turned on the lights, heard voices but didn't see anything. So she turned and went back into the house. All of this really critical in setting the scene for this trial.
HEMMER: We shall see tomorrow when she takes the stand. Thank you, Deborah. Deborah Feyerick here live tonight in Norwalk.
The town of Greenwich, Connecticut is not your typical small town. In fact, it's a very wealthy town. It's a place where a lot of people move, to get out of the limelight and the spotlight of New York City. But now, clearly, the limelight has gone to Greenwich and for us tonight, here's Maria Hinojosa nearby in that town.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HINOJOSA (voice-over): Beautiful Greenwich, Connecticut, with its stunning homes right on the Long Island Sound, less than an hour from New York City, many wealthy people live here to get away from it all, but not too far away. On the main street, there's a corner Tiffany's store. Down the block, a Saks Fifth Avenue, which is walking distance from several high profile designer boutiques, and posh restaurants designed to make you feel like you're in Paris. Yes, there's lots of traffic, but no stoplights on Greenwich Avenue. The traffic cops here, well, they wear white gloves.
SCHUDROFF: Bentleys are a sportier image.
HINOJOSA: And it isn't every down in America that has its own Ferrari, Rolls Royce and Bentley dealership. This Ferrari goes for $260,000, and Michael Schudroff sells lots of them in Greenwich.
SCHUDROFF: It's probably a different environment than anyplace else in America.
HINOJOSA (on-camera): Because...
SCHUDROFF: Of the type of people and the wealth that's here.
HINOJOSA: Really wealthy?
SCHUDROFF: Very wealthy.
HINOJOSA (voice-over): Greenwich is officially known as the wealthiest town in America. CEO's, celebrities and sports stars live here. The town hall might seem welcoming, but if you're an outsider...
(on-camera): How do I apply for a beach permit?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you a resident?
HINOJOSA: No.
(voice-over): You have a buy a permit to visit its beaches. It's this air of exclusivity that sets Greenwich apart.
(on-camera): What is Greenwich all about?
ARTHUR HELMS, CITY EDITOR, "GREENWICH TIME": You know I think despite appearances, Greenwich is, you know, about almost exactly the same things any small or middle size town is about. You know it's got a certain surface appearance or stereotype, but obviously, you know, it's not immune to, you know, all the outside world, big world problems that, you know, everybody else has.
HINOJOSA (voice-over): Well, somewhat. While Greenwich might be back on the front pages because of the Skakel trial, there have been fewer than 14 other murders in this town over the past 26 years. That's why the owner of Putnam's diner, Nick Nickus (ph) lives here. It's relatively safe and friendly.
NICK NICKUS, PUTNAM'S DINER: People are nice. They don't walk with their nose up.
HINOJOSA: And for construction workers, like Hugh Keough, it means Greenwich is a good place for work. Someone has to keep the property up.
HUGH KEOUGH, GREENWICH RESIDENT: It's about property in Greenwich. It's all about how many acres, that's what it's about, not having your house right in someone's face, you know what I mean? It's having privacy, hidden in the back, you can't see the house from the road, you know, nice.
HINOJOSA (on-camera): So it's about...
KEOUGH: Sits back.
HINOJOSA: ... people having their little space and having the ability to...
KEOUGH: A big space.
(LAUGHTER)
HINOJOSA: A big space.
(voice-over): Big, beautiful, idyllic spaces that for the next several weeks will be touched by the dirty common crime of murder.
Maria HINOJOSA, CNN, Greenwich, Connecticut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: No eye witnesses. Little scientific evidence. Memories dimmed by time. We'll ask our legal analysts -- how strong is the case against Michael Skakel?
Later, a brand new trial in an even older case.
And, a year after her killing, the upcoming case against her husband, actor, Robert Blake.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no witnesses to the killing and there's no scientific link.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE: MURDER, THE COURTS & THE COUNTRY returns in a moment.
For a time line on the murder of Martha Moxley dating back to 1975, head to CNN.com. The AOL keyword is CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: One of the reasons for the media attention in the Skakel trial is the Kennedy connection. The defendant is the nephew of Ethel Skakel-Kennedy, wife of the late Robert Kennedy.
HEMMER: There are countless legal complexities in this case despite the fact that it's been going on right now for 26 years' time, dating back to 1975, and many observers of this case say the prosecution has an uphill battle to climb. One of those people who agrees with that opinion, Jeffrey Toobin, our CNN legal analyst with us this evening here.
Good evening to you, Jeff. Good to see you.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hi, Bill.
HEMMER: You say this is a case that is very tough to prove. How tough and why?
TOOBIN: I was talking to Mickey Sherman today, the lawyer for Michael Skakel and he said, "Don't say I'm the favorite, say I'm the underdog. It's bad luck to be the favorite." But I - but no can do. I mean it is a tough case for the prosecution. Twenty-six years and courtroom evidence is not like fine wine, it does not improve with age. People forget. People disappear. People die. The prosecution has had all of those problems and that's just the beginning.
HEMMER: DNA, eyewitnesses, none of that, right?
TOOBIN: No eyewitness testimony, no scientific testimony tying Michael Skakel to the crime scene or the murder weapon, this golf club. A big problem.
HEMMER: You're not painting a very promising picture for prosecutors. Flip it around. How does the prosecution win then?
TOOBIN: They win it from Michael Skakel's mouth. The best evidence they have is what he has said over the years, a shifting story, at times seeming to indicate that he is sort of maybe confessing to this murder. That's the best evidence they have.
HEMMER: Many people have said that the last thing you want your client to do is talk, but you're saying he has, and that was the first mistake.
TOOBIN: This case is living example of why defense lawyers -- the first thing they always say to their clients no hatter what is shut up because he talked at various times. Going back to high school, when he was at this very mysterious somewhat sinister schooled called the lan, where rich people's kids go to try to get straightened out, there have been witnesses there who said that he, again, sort of ...
HEMMER: They alleged that he...
TOOBIN: They alleged that he confessed. And ever since then, include them. One of the key pieces of evidence would be a book proposal. He, at one point, thought about writing a book about his experience here, and some of the tapes that he made in the course of preparing this book, which never has been published, will be used by the prosecution.
HEMMER: Go back to that school, lan. It was a treatment center essentially, and Michael Skakel was there to get treatment for substance abuse. Many of the witnesses for the prosecution that you just eluded to, the testimony will come from them during a time when they themselves were treated. What does it do to witness credible in a case like this?
TOOBIN: You know, jurors have common sense and if people are drug addicts, if they're drunk, if they've had all sorts of problems like that, it lessens their credibility.
Another example, Gregory Coleman was one of the key witnesses in the preliminary hearing that was held here last year. He testified that he was a student at lan. He had all sorts of drug problems, and he said, "Skakel said to me, 'I did this, but I'll get away with it because I'm a Kennedy.'" But last year, Gregory Coleman died. This witness, this key prosecution witness died.
One of the big legal fights in this case hasn't been decided yet is will Gregory Coleman's transcript of his testimony be allowed to be introduced. But a transcript is never as good as a live witness.
HEMMER: Indeed and we're going to talk more about the other characters in this case a bit later in our broadcast here. But I want to know from you, from the prosecution's side, do they then essentially have to go through this trial and prove that the other suspects, the other characters could not have committed this crime?
TOOBIN: It's another burden the prosecution, because it's not just about Michael Skakel here. What the defense is going to do, they're going to say what about the live-in tutor, Ken Littleton, what about the guy next door, Edward Hammond, what about -- this is a dicey area, but maybe what about Tommy Skakel, Michael's brother who was a prime suspect from the beginning? The prosecution is going to have to eliminate them as suspects and prove that Michael Skakel committed this crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
HEMMER: See you a bit later in the show. More to talk about, OK?
TOOBIN: OK.
HEMMER: OK, Jeff, good to see you again, Norwalk, Connecticut at this time.
In a moment here, what happened back in October of 1975 and where and why did the police fumble? Up next, a guest here who knows all about that subject. We'll talk about that when we come back.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up later, why some trials capture the fascination of Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even a link to the famous is enough. More than a decade before the current Skakel trial, another Kennedy relative, William Kennedy Smith was on trial for rape.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE returns in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Once again, good evening from Norwalk, Connecticut, we're outside the courthouse, where tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, opening statements will begin in the murder case of Martha Moxley. We continue our discussion tonight with the man who got on this case just about 20 years ago from "Newsday," Len Levitt is our guest this evening. And we just - good evening to you by the way.
LEN LEVITT, "NEWSDAY" COLUMNIST: How are you, Bill?
HEMMER: I'm doing just fine. Thank you very much.
Just talking to Jeffrey Toobin about a number of the players. I want to go through four of the main players right now. Number one, Michael Skakel. I think a lot of people may not realize it was only seven years ago, 1995 where he became a suspect in this case. What changed that?
LEVITT: What changed it was Michael's own words. Michael's got a big mouth and he can't keep quiet. And he told investigators working for his family that he lied to the police about his whereabouts the night of the murder. He told them that when he -- in 1975, he told the police that he went home at 11:00 and went to bed. He tells investigators for his family that at midnight he got out of the house, climbed a tree by Martha's window, masturbated in the tree, threw stones at her window to awaken her, then ran by the - what turned out to be the crime - past the crime scene, heard voices, didn't see anything.
HEMMER: Talk about Tommy Skakel, two years older, 17 at the time. Why is he no longer the prime suspect?
LEVITT: He's no longer the prime suspect because of Michael. This is not to say that he's ruled out. They have not ruled him out. They have not given him immunity. There is a feeling that Tommy may have been involved in some way, may have known something. He's not ruled out, but Michael is the man now that they're focusing on.
HEMMER: We have mentioned two names in our broadcast, Ken Littleton and Greg Coleman. First, Ken Littleton, the tutor who moved into the house the night the murder took place. He was a tutor for the other children living in there, at the house. He has failed numerous lie detectors, but he's also been given immunity. How does he fit in the current puzzle right now?
LEVITT: Ken Littleton is probably the unluckiest man on this planet. He doesn't know Martha. He's never meat Martha. He moves into the house the night of the murder, and he becomes a suspect six months later when he's arrested for a series of burglaries up in Nantucket. He fails lie detectors one after another. It has nothing to do, the prosecution feels, with his knowledge about the murders; it has to do with his own mental condition.
HEMMER: How much can jurors believe from him though if he failed lie detectors tests on numerous occasions?
LEVITT: Well, a lie detector is evidence in court. They - can you admit lie detectors as evidence in court? I don't think so.
HEMMER: Greg Coleman, chief witness, dead. What did he offer or what could he have offered because at one time he was the witness for the prosecution?
LEVITT: He was one witness who said that Michael told him at a drug rehabilitation center that he killed Martha and that he was going to get away with it because he was a Kennedy. The prosecution caught a break when Greg Coleman died. The jury is not going to get to see him and the prosecution is very lucky. The guy admitted when he testified he was high on drugs. I wanted to believe this guy. When he finished testifying, I didn't even believe him.
HEMMER: Wow! Twenty-six years ago, mistakes were made. Numerous people have said that. There are not been a murder in Greenwich, Connecticut in 30 years up until that night in late October 1975.
LEVITT: Correct.
HEMMER: What mistakes were made by police at that point?
LEVITT: The day Martha's body was found the police came upon a matching set of golf clubs to the murder weapon. They found that inside the Skakel house. What they should have done is get a search warrant and search that house from stem - what did they say, stern to stem?
HEMMER: Stem to stern.
LEVITT: ... stem to stern, whatever. They never did that. They also did not, it appears, and we're going to see if this comes out at the trial, but it looks like they did not take witnesses' statements from the Skakel family of where they were...
HEMMER: Why is that?
LEVITT: You got me. That's a question again that I'm sure Mickey Sherman is going to have some fun with. It looks like they were intimidated by the Skakel family without even realizing it.
HEMMER: Given their position...
LEVITT: Given their position.
HEMMER: ... in the community.
LEVITT: They did not want to accept the fact that the Skakel's could have done this. But in the defense of the Greenwich Police, once they zeroed in on Tommy as a suspect, they were ruthless in trying to turn up all kinds of information that they could.
HEMMER: I only have about 15 seconds left here. You have said, though, the defense strategy right now will be to shift the focus. Shift it where?
LEVITT: Shift it to Littleton. They can't shift it to Tommy because he's a Skakel and it's going to make them all look just as bad as if Michael did it. Ken Littleton, a stranger, no resources, perfect guy, can't defend himself.
HEMMER: Len Levitt, you'll be in court tomorrow...
LEVITT: Yes.
HEMMER: ... from "Newsday." We appreciate your time tonight. LEVITT: Thank you very much, Bill.
HEMMER: All right. In a moment here, there are two other cases we will explore. We will have those for you when we continue again LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE on a Tuesday night.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, a notorious moment in civil rights history and a former Klu Klux Klansman who's finally being brought to court.
Also, could his trial rival O.J.'s? LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE: MURDER, THE COURTS & THE COUNTRY will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MOLINEAUX: I'm Charles Molineaux at the CNN Center in Atlanta, LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE with Bill Hemmer will return in just a couple of minutes, but first, this brief news alert.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is making the rounds in Washington, meeting with Bush administration officials on the eve of his visit with the president. He also addressed the Anti-Defamation League tonight and laid out his plans to advance peace in the Middle East. He also defended Israel's recent incursion in the West Bank.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIEL SHARON, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAELI: We were blamed and all that - we were blood libel, but I can assure you, in these operation, though I said - mentioned we have been blood libel, there was no massacre. No where, there was no massacre. And it took us several days, I will say, to stand and fight against these blood libel. And I was very strong in my position that the state of Israel, the Israeli citizens should not be tried by the world.
HEMMER: It is being described as the first assassination in modern Dutch history. A right-wing political leader has been gunned down in the Netherlands.
Pim Fortuyn was the head of an anti-immigration party. The party was expected to make big gains in next week's Dutch elections.
Fortuyn was attacked on the street shortly after he gave a radio interview. Police say they have arrested a suspect.
With the wind dying down, firefighters are slowing the spread of a 250-acre wildfire west of Denver. It is burning about 25 miles outside of town, and it is still only 10 percent contained.
The flames came within a quarter-mile of at least one house, and within two miles of a subdivision. Thousands of people were forced to evacuate.
And that is a brief NEWS ALERT. Bill Hemmer will be back in 30 seconds with a look at what's coming up on LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE. But first, this MONEYLINE UPDATE. LOU DOBBS, MONEYLINE UPDATE: I'm Lou Dobbs with this MONEYLINE UPDATE. A brutal session on Wall Street, the Dow down nearly 200 points. The NASDAQ fell 34.
Falling oil prices contributed to the sell-off after Iraq said it would end its embargo.
Watch MONEYLINE, weeknights 6:00 p.m. eastern on CNN. Now, back to Bill Hemmer, LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE.
HEMMER: Next, another case that goes back for decades. Live to Birmingham, Alabama almost 40 years after four young girls were murdered - a case that helped shape the civil rights fight in America.
ANNOUNCER: Later, crimes that captured everyone's attention. Jeff Greenfield looks at a century of trials of the century.
The McMartin Preschool molestation case of 1983, is the nation's longest and most expensive criminal case. The trials lasted more than seven years and cost Los Angeles County more than $13.5 million. No convictions were ever obtained.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: In the 1960s, Birmingham, Alabama was referred to as "Bombingham." There were 21 bombings in eight years in Alabama's largest city.
HEMMER: Now we turn our attention to another case that has taken literally decades before it went to trial. They were picking a jury today in Birmingham, Alabama - a notorious case during the civil rights era.
The man on trial accused of taking part in the murder of four young black women.
Brian Cabell, now, tonight takes us back and looks forward in that case.
BRIAN CABELL, CNN NEWS: Thirty-nine years have passed since that awful Sunday in 1963, that day when a bomb rocked the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
Four girls getting dressed in their white satin choir robes were killed instantly when bricks and mortar came raining down on them.
The city mourned. The nation mourned. And Martin Luther King, Jr., officiating at the funeral, warned against hating those who had planted the bomb.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: You love your enemies. Bless them that curse you.
CABELL: The bombing came at a time when segregation was still the law throughout much of the South. And the Ku Klux Klan was frequently the enforcer, especially in Alabama. Birmingham acquired the nickname "Bombingham."
The FBI investigation pointed to four Klansmen as suspects in the case, but FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover determined there wasn't enough evidence to charge them.
Eight years passed, and then a crusading Alabama attorney general, Bill Baxley, reopened the case, charged Bob Chambliss, one of the original suspects, with murder, got him convicted and sent him to prison for life. Chambliss died behind bars in 1985.
More than a decade later, the files in the case were opened yet again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The state grand jury has returned the indictment.
CABELL: Two more of the original suspects, Tom Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry were charged. The fourth suspect had already died.
Blanton was convicted of murder last year and sent to prison for life. That's where he resides today.
But Cherry was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial. A subsequent ruling did find him competent, and now, 39 years after the crime, Bobby Frank Cherry, professing his complete innocence, will get his day in court.
This will likely be the final chapter of a story that horrified a nation, frustrated investigators and left the victims' families wondering why it's taken so long.
Well, it won't take long now. The jury selection got underway today. It will likely last through the end of the week, maybe until Monday. Then the trial itself will get underway next Monday or Tuesday.
The judge told potential jurors today it would last approximately three weeks. And Bobby Frank Cherry, who is now 72 years old, will face life in prison if he is convicted - Bill.
HEMMER: Brian, back up just a little bit. At first he was ruled incompetent, later ruled competent. What changed there in that matter?
CABELL: Yeah, initially some psychiatrists came back with a determination that he was suffering from something called vascular dementia. His brain was shrinking and dying, they ruled.
But then he was re-examined a few months later, and the psychiatrists and the judge subsequently ruled that he had been faking it, that he had been faking this dementia, that he really could remember things back in the '60s.
So he ruled he was able to stand trial, that he is in fact competent to stand trial. HEMMER: Brian, also in Alabama, there's an interesting sidebar working there, because about a week ago, the state said it was running out of cash, simply, to support a number of trials.
But the county has come back and said, we'll pay for it, essentially.
Does that give us an indication about how anxious parts of that state are to hold this case?
CABELL: Absolutely. There was no money, according to the chief justice of the state supreme court for any jury trials in the State of Alabama.
But Jefferson County said, we want this trial in particular to get underway. We want all trials in Jefferson County to get underway. So they said, here's $272,000. Start this trial immediately.
So they were delayed, but they are underway now because they wanted this case in particular, 39 years old, to get underway.
HEMMER: Brian, thanks. Brian Cabell live in Birmingham on that case for us tonight.
In a moment, it was Saturday this past weekend with the murder one year to the day when Bonny Lee Bakley was killed outside of a restaurant in L.A.
The defendant in that case is her husband Robert Blake, the former actor.
We'll go live to L.A. in a moment when our coverage continues tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Robert Blake is being held at the hospital wing of the Los Angeles County jail. Robert Downey, Jr. once stayed in the very same cell. Other celebrities once held in the hospital wing include O.J. Simpson and Sean Penn.
HEMMER: It was a year ago this past Saturday, again, where the actor Robert Blake, his life was changed forever. That night his wife Bonny Lee Bakley was shot and killed outside of a restaurant in Los Angeles.
Ever since that time, now a bit more than a year later, Charles Feldman has been on the case, and he is again tonight in Los Angeles.
CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is perhaps fitting that the murder that is at the very heart of the Robert Blake case happened at night. The shooting death of Blake's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, highlights the seamy side of Hollywood.
A woman out to nail a Hollywood actor in the hope his fame would somehow rub off on her. An aging, former movie and TV star whose fathering of a child leads to a horrible marriage and allegedly a plot - several plots to hire hit men to kill his wife.
And finally, if prosecutors are right, the decision to do the job himself.
Veteran screenwriter and USC writing professor John Furia knows a good story when he sees one.
How deep and how dark and how mysterious is this?
JOHN FURIA, SCREENWRITER: Well, I think it's very deep and very dark. All drama gets back to character relationships.
So here are real relationships. And the relationship was dark and strange between the two of them. It was sexual. It - there was a baby involved. And a murder.
What more elements would you want?
FELDMAN: Robert Blake is charged with murdering his wife. His former bodyguard, Earl Caldwell, is charged with conspiracy to murder Bonny Lee Bakley.
Both pleaded not guilty.
Even the evidence in this case borders on the melodramatic. After Blake and Caldwell were arrested, prosecutors said they found a list - a shopping list of sorts - inside Caldwell's Jeep of items to be used presumably for the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley.
We assembled some of those items on the list. They include two shovels, a sledge hammer, some duct tape, a crowbar, some pool acid, Drano and a .25 automatic pistol.
Former LAPD detective Tom Lange has investigated more than 300 homicides, including the O.J. Simpson case.
How unusual is this sort of cast of characters in this particular case?
TOM LANGE, FORMER LAPD DETECTIVE: Well, for one thing, the cast of characters apparently has spread out all over the country. It's not just one little group.
You know, that's what you think when you think of a murder, you think of something's been festering for a while, and then you have a strong motive, and A goes to B and kills them.
Here, apparently, we have at least two solicitations that we know of, ...
FELDMAN: For murder.
LANGE: ... for murder, ... FELDMAN: Right.
LANGE: ... that apparently fell through.
FELDMAN: If Hollywood is a land of dreams for some, it has also proved time and time again, a place where those dreams can be easily shattered.
It's the side of Hollywood you usually don't see from a tour bus - the dark side.
Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.
HEMMER: And right after our broadcast tonight in about 15 minutes time, Larry King continues to talk on the Blake matter. He'll have as a guest tonight the best friend of Bonny Lee Bakley, again nine o'clock eastern, six on the West Coast, here on CNN.
But whether it is the Robert Blake case in L.A. or the O.J. Simpson matter, or this case here in Norwalk, Connecticut featuring Michael Skakel, charged with murder that lasted 26 years ago - whether it's that case or not, Americans seem to find a fascination when the gavel goes down, and the high profile is center stage.
Tonight Jeff Greenfield and why that fascination has been engrained in American history.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know what you're looking at the minute you see it. The judge, the jury, the lawyers, the accused - and there's an element of drama built right in.
Did he do it? Will a surprise witness show up and shock the courtroom?
But, when the right elements come together, that drama can mesmerize the whole country. And that was true long before anyone ever heard of television.
One surefire ingredient - a rich or famous character as victim or the accused or both.
VOICE OF NEWSREEL: This man killed Stanford White.
GREENFIELD: Nearly a century ago in 1906, millionaire socialite Harry K. Thaw killed famed architect Stanford White in a fit of jealousy over Thaw's showgirl wife, Evelyn Nesbit. The trial of the century, the "New York Times" called it.
It was pretty early in the century, but the case became immortalized in the book and movie, "Ragtime."
VOICE OF NEWSREEL: The crime of the century became the trial of the century.
GREENFIELD: A famous victim will drive a case into the spotlight. In 1935, Bruno Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, New Jersey for the kidnap-murder of the infant child of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.
The greatest story since the resurrection, writer H.L. Mencken called it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not a thing yet.
GREENFIELD: The phone company put in enough lines to service a major city, and newsreels were allowed to film the cross-examination of Hauptmann, who was convicted and executed for a crime he may well have never committed.
Long before O.J., accused celebrities were a big draw. Silent film star Fatty Arbuckle was accused of killing a girl at a wild party. After three trials he was acquitted, but his career was ruined.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Have you thought of any particular names for the children?
GREENFIELD: Nearly 20 years later, film star Errol Flynn was charged with the statutory rape of two teenage girls. He was acquitted, but the case gave rise to a new piece of slang - in like Flynn.
In 1943, comedian Charles Chaplin lost a paternity case, although a blood test, inadmissible at that time, showed he couldn't have been the father.
Sometimes a case involves major controversies. The espionage trial of Alger Hiss in the late '40s, and of accused atom spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were, in effect, about major issues - Communism and the Cold War.
At times, even a link to the famous is enough. More than a decade before the current Skakel trial, another Kennedy relative, William Kennedy Smith, was on trial for rape. He was found not guilty.
And if a case is shocking enough, if it strikes at a primal fear, you don't need a famous figure to make it compelling.
Consider the cases of Polly Klaas, abducted from her home and killed. Or the trial of the nanny accused of killing the child in her care. Or a mother charged with murdering her children.
In each of those cases we find ourselves thinking, that could have been me. That could have been my child.
These are all very different kinds of cases, of course, but they do share one common trait. Not only are they all real life dramas, but they are dramas whose conclusion no one can really predict.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
HEMMER: When we continue, we'll go back to the Martha Moxley murder. Jeffrey Toobin is back with us. So, too, Catherine Crier from COURT TV.
And a reminder to our viewers, tomorrow night at this time, eight o'clock eastern, five on the West Coast, only here on CNN. You'll see it from California.
Tomorrow, Connie Chung live from the Skywalker Ranch, "Countdown of the Clones" - it opens in fewer that two weeks' time.
CNN, the first network to go live from the ranch, as the latest Star Wars saga gets ready for its launch. And Connie will talk with Star Wars creator and director, George Lukas, as well as the stars from that film.
Again, tomorrow night, only here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: On October 3rd, 1995, 142 million Americans watched on TV or listened on the radio to the verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial.
HEMMER: Back in Norwalk, Connecticut now, we're going to shift our focus back to the Martha Moxley murder. Again, it begins tomorrow, opening statements in the courtroom behind me here in Norwalk, Connecticut.
With me once again, Jeffrey Toobin, CNN legal analyst. Didn't let you get off too easy tonight, did we?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Back to work.
HEMMER: All right. Also with us from New York, Catherine Crier by way of COURT TV. Catherine, good evening to you.
CATHERINE CRIER, COURT TV: Hey, Bill.
HEMMER: Listen. If you were a prosecutor back in the State of Texas, knowing what you know right now about the evidence in this case, would you bring this case to trial?
CRIER: Well, I heard Jeffrey earlier, and I have to go along with him. I am an ex-prosecutor, and yet I sound like a defense attorney when I talk about this case, because it's going to be virtually impossible, I think, to win this trial.
There is not enough evidence. The time has gone by too far. The witnesses are not credible enough that they're going to line up, I don't think.
And I think it's going to be a very, very tough road.
HEMMER: So then why bring it to court, then? Is this the case that they want to bring regardless? To get a decision and make one and move one way or the other?
CRIER: I think there may be some of that. Dorothy Moxley has been so stalwart over the years. But she has said, what I want is our day in court. Whatever the jury does, that's their decision. I want our day in court.
So there may be some of that.
HEMMER: You know, but Catherine, cases have been - convictions have been turned based on circumstantial evidence. Cases have been turned with convictions that were easily 26 years old or older. Given that, it has happened in the past.
CRIER: Well, the defendant named Cherry is now being tried down in Birmingham for that bombing back in the '60s. So we know those convictions are easily obtainable when you've got the evidence.
Here, what do you have? You have no forensics tying him there. You've basically got confessions from students at a drug - members of a drug rehab school, one of them who OD'd on heroine after he testified to the grand jury.
You have some circumstantial connection during the evening between these two people, but you're not going to be able to put him at the site with the body. There's nothing - not fingerprints, not DNA - nothing to put him at the site.
HEMMER: Should we go home, Jeff?
TOOBIN: I don't disagree with Catherine entirely. I think this is a very tough case. But I think we have to give the prosecution its due.
The murder weapon came out of the Skakel home, the six-iron that belonged to his late mother.
He has changed his story about where he was. He has - you know, there also may be a reaction on the jury that says, well, if he didn't do it, who did?
I mean, it is - there is a web of circumstantial evidence that does suggest he might have done it. It's a tough case for the prosecution, no doubt.
CRIER: But, Jeffrey, ...
HEMMER: Go ahead, Catherine.
CRIER: I was just going to say, circumstantial evidence really is a function of putting together enough pieces of the puzzle to see the picture.
I don't think you can see Michael Skakel after you've placed all of those pieces down, to the exclusion of others beyond a reasonable doubt.
I wouldn't want to try this case.
TOOBIN: I wouldn't - I'm a former prosecutor, too. And I wouldn't be jumping up and down to try it, either.
CRIER: No.
TOOBIN: But I do think that there is a - the prosecution does have a fighting chance here. He is not, I think, an especially appealing defendant.
I think some of the class issues here, you know, there is a sense in this community that the Skakels may have gotten away with this for too long.
The Moxley family, there is something very appealing about, especially Dorothy Moxley's fight to get justice for her daughter.
So, you know, I'm - I don't mean to, you know, gild the lily too much about this one, but I do think that the prosecution has a mess.
HEMMER: I hope the prosecutors aren't watching our program tonight.
Catherine, shift our focus to jurors right now. One thing Jeff and I were talking about earlier tonight. There's been an awful lot of pre-trial publicity for this case.
But also, you believe, Jeff, that juries are more sophisticated. When did that transformation take place, '95?
TOOBIN: One of the things that jurors all hear from judges is, don't pay attention to the news media. Don't read the newspaper.
But I don't think they really buy it that much. I mean, I think they know, even if they agree not to read the newspaper or watch TV, they see that - right in front of us, they can't see it on TV - now there are six - there are 12 TV trucks out there.
Jurors know that they are going to have to defend their verdict in public. They are probably going to give interviews. They're probably going to be asked about it by their friends.
And I think that that gives them - that focuses their attention a lot.
HEMMER: You know, Catherine, the other point Jeff made is that jurors essentially have grown up with this case, knowing it's 26 years old right now.
CRIER: They have, and they haven't. It is 26 years old. A lot of water under the bridge between now and then.
If you were in Greenwich, you did grow up. They've moved this to Norwalk. Just down the road, it would not be dominating lives like it did in that very small enclave in Connecticut.
So, they may have read Furman's book. They may have seen "A Season in Purgatory" that Dominick Dunne produced. But all of that is not enough to keep this in the limelight. So I think, to many of these jurors, it'll be new.
HEMMER: Catherine, if the prosecution in this case is such an underdog, how do they flip it and win?
CRIER: Oh, boy. Well, Jeffrey pointed out some things, and unfortunately - he's being truthful, but he's pointing out psychological factors, emotional reactions to the defendant, feelings in the community about one family or the other.
That's not evidence. And the jurors are going to be instructed to look at the evidence.
How do they win it? I'm not sure they can. I'm not sure there's a way to pull this out of the hat.
HEMMER: I think we've stumped both of you on ...
TOOBIN: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we may ...
HEMMER: A final word, quick, Jeff.
TOOBIN: Well, I think one of the things about covering these high profile trials, there are always surprises. We don't know all the evidence here.
And I think we need to - as the judges say to the jurors, keep an open mind, and we should do the same.
HEMMER: And we'll do that starting tomorrow.
CRIER: It will be fascinating.
HEMMER: Catherine, thanks. That's right. Catherine Crier, COURT TV. Thanks for stopping by, Catherine.
CRIER: Thanks, Bill.
HEMMER: Good to talk to you again. All right, Jeffrey Toobin, live here in Norwalk, Connecticut. We'll talk again many times, OK, my friend?
TOOBIN: OK.
HEMMER: Talk to you later.
TOOBIN: Good deal.
HEMMER: Ten a.m., again, opening statements - 10 a.m. eastern time in the small courthouse behind me. The attention of America in part will shift to this case.
We will be here watching and we hope you are too.
I'm Bill Hemmer. Thanks for watching tonight. Live from the courthouse. More after this on LARRY KING LIVE. Goodnight, now.
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