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American Morning

Analysts Discuss Skakel Trial

Aired May 08, 2002 - 08:15   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: Later this morning, testimony will resume in the Connecticut trial of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, accused of murdering his teenage neighbor, Martha Moxley, 26 years ago. And in court yesterday, as the trial began, jurors were introduced to the 15-year-old murder victim, brought there by prosecutors in spirit and in her own words.

Here's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's been dead 26 years, but Martha Moxley's presence was very much alive in a Connecticut courtroom as her friend, Michael Skakel, went on trial for her murder. In the morning, her smiling face projected on a screen, beaming down on the jury. In the afternoon, a very different image -- crime scene photos of Martha laying face down, her skull bashed in, her hair bloody.

TIMOTHY DUMAS, AUTHOR, JOURNALIST: I think the prosecution really wanted to contrast this young girl who was full of life to this act of brutality that had been done on her.

FEYERICK: Martha's voice also coming to life. Photocopies of her diary entries in the weeks before she died handed to the press. She writes of her feelings about Michael Skakel and his brother Tommy. Michael treating her to an ice cream cone, a double scoop, later accusing Martha of leading Tommy on. Another day, another entry, a night ending badly when Michael nearly got into a fistfight with Tommy and his other brothers. Martha describing Michael as acting like a big he man.

DUMAS: We do have this part in the diary about Michael getting mad at Martha about leading Tommy on, which is also very interesting. And you wonder what's going on beneath the surface of that.

FEYERICK: The first witness on the stand, Martha's mom. She says she heard a commotion, teenage voices on the side of her house in the area where Martha was later found. Dorothy Moxley says she looked out the window, but didn't see anyone. So she turned off the porch light, fearing someone might steal Martha's new 10 speed bike. Then, a mother's worst fear, Mrs. Moxley wondering whether she heard Martha's screams as she closed the window that night.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: It appears that Martha did have some second doubts about the Skakel brothers. At one point she writes, "Michael jumps to conclusions" and just because she talks to Tommy, it doesn't mean she likes him. She writes, "I really have to stop going over there."

Michael Skakel showed emotion during the trial when the judge overruled his lawyer by letting those diary entries into evidence. Michael Skakel got very agitated and two of his lawyers had to pat him on the shoulder to calm him down -- Paula.

ZAHN: Deborah, we're going to be relying on you in the days to come to keep us up to date on what's happening there in Connecticut.

Thanks so much for the update.

And joining us now to talk more about the Skakel trial, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and also legal analyst Tim Green. Good to see both you.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hi.

TIM GREEN, LEGAL ANALYST: Hi, Paula.

ZAHN: So you were in the courtroom yesterday?

TOOBIN: I was.

ZAHN: You saw these pictures that were introduced into evidence. Was there anything new?

TOOBIN: Well, it's always dramatic in a murder trial to see the victim, to see particularly how horribly beaten she was and just the awfulness of seeing a beautiful 15-year-old girl in that position. The important point to make is that yesterday's testimony had virtually no connection to Michael Skakel. The murder took place and that's what the prosecutors were proving and it wasn't incumbent upon them to prove that Skakel did it yesterday.

But I think as we heard in the opening statement, the connections between Skakel and the murder look pretty thin at this point and there were none made yesterday.

GREEN: Well, but it's also important for the prosecution to lay out right at the beginning that here's something that happened that's absolutely horrible, to really horrify the jury, to try to promote them to say listen, someone has to be punished for this.

TOOBIN: And...

ZAHN: And I understand that it was very disturbing at one point for the defense to see this wonderful picture of the young Moxley woman looking gorgeous and young and vibrant.

TOOBIN: This is the kind of chess game that goes on in these trials all the time. The prosecution tried to keep that beautiful blonde photograph of Martha Moxley up in the courtroom all the time. And Mickey Sherman, the defense lawyer, kept saying to the judge do you think we can take it down now? Do you think we can take it down now? Again, trying to humanize the victim, trying to remove that element definitely.

GREEN: Well, that's the prosecution's difficulty here, is this thing happened 27 years ago. So now they have to bring it back into today. They have to make it something that is tangible for the jury to say hey, this was a 15-year-old girl who was bludgeoned to death with a golf club and then impaled in the neck with the shaft.

ZAHN: Dorothy Moxley, of course, has been trying for years to get Michael Skakel put on trial. She had her moment yesterday. How effective was her testimony?

TOOBIN: She's an extremely appealing woman. She's just, she has a grandmotherly niceness. At one point the prosecutor asked her do you see Michael Skakel in the courtroom? And she said well, you know, I don't like to point. She didn't want to point the finger at him. I mean that's the kind of woman she was.

She actually did help the defense in some way...

ZAHN: How?

TOOBIN: Because she said that she heard the noise, she heard the tumult outside her house at 9:30. From 9:00 to 10:00, Michael Skakel appears to have an alibi. The prosecution wants to say that the murder took place 10:30, 11:00. By making the murder at 9:30 -- and Dorothy Moxley helped on that -- that does help the defense.

GREEN: You do have to remember, though, that the last time she was seen, the last time Martha was seen she was actually with Skakel's older brother Tommy and they were roughhousing on the lawn. That was the last time she was seen.

ZAHN: Let's talk about the significance of this diary, the entries of which were shared with the press yesterday. And I want to put up on the screen a very small part of an excerpt where Martha apparently wrote about her relationship with Michael and his brother. And she said, "Michael was so totally out of it that he was being a real expletive in his action and words. He kept telling me that I was leading Tom on when I don't like him."

At what point will the jury hear this stuff and how powerful will it be?

TOOBIN: It's, there's, it's not really in dispute that Martha and Michael knew each other. It really, it's so poignant to read. It's, you know, girlish handwriting and it really feels like a 15- year-old's diary. It's nothing particularly explicit. It's just, you know, I like him, he likes me kind of thing.

ZAHN: But why did the press get this first?

TOOBIN: Well, because the... ZAHN: And not the jury?

TOOBIN: Because the government filed a motion to have it allowed into evidence, a written motion, and the diary excerpts were attached. The judge admitted the diary entries, but the prosecution said we don't want to show it to the jury now, we'll show it to the jury later.

ZAHN: A final thought, Tim, on the strength of the opening arguments of either side?

GREEN: I just, I think that having Martha's mother right there in the courtroom is one of the prosecution's best defenses -- I mean best strategies. They have to, again, bring this into something tangible today. So now you've got the mother there, who's very sympathetic. You've got the picture of the 15-year-old. This is going to have to be proven mostly on circumstantial evidence. So they're going to have to really just generate a lot of emotion from that jury to get a conviction.

ZAHN: Early read on the jury just by looking at their faces?

TOOBIN: Very suburban. This is a 12, pretty wealthy people. As someone who's mostly watched trials in big cities, it was very striking to see all that Ralph Lauren in a jury, in the jury box.

ZAHN: Maybe you could have shot an ad for a future campaign.

TOOBIN: That's right. That's right.

ZAHN: All right, Jeffrey Toobin and Tim Green, thanks, both of you, for dropping by A.M. this morning.

GREEN: Thanks, Paula.

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