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American Morning

Court TV Reporter Discusses Skakel Murder Trial

Aired May 20, 2002 - 09:10   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: We're going to move on to legal now. Prosecutors in the Michael Skakel murder trial will pick up this morning where they left off Friday, with more evidence of Skakel's alleged confessions. Last week, Alice Dunn, who used Skakel at the Elan School -- which is sort of a rehab center/school -- and Elizabeth Arnold, who was a classmate of Skakel's at the school for troubled teens, they testified that the Kennedy cousin made certain admissions about the Moxley murder in the late 1970s.

And joining us with more on that and what to expect in the week ahead, Court TV's Vinnie Politan, who is outside the courthouse in Norwalk, Connecticut this morning -- good morning, nice to have you with us, Vinnie.

VINNIE POLITAN, COURT TV: Good morning, Paula. It's a little chilly up here this morning, but always great to be here.

ZAHN: Yes, winter has returned, hasn't it? A Good wake-up call this Monday morning. Walk out through a little bit of that testimony on Friday and the significance of the alleged confession Michael Skakel made at Elan.

POLITAN: Well that's the key word, is "alleged confession," because this is nothing close to a direct confession. What you have are a bunch of these students at the Elan school, this rehab school that Michael was in, in the late '70s. And they were all students at the time. And according to the students at this school where they had people with problems, they had this thing called a boxing ring session, where you would put members of the school in the boxing ring. The other members would put on boxing gloves and they would sort of beat you up until you said what you wanted them to say.

And in this case, they were talking about the Martha Moxley murder, and he would -- according to the testimony the way it came out, during the sessions Michael Skakel would say, "I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it." They'd start beating on him and eventually he would say, "OK, maybe I did it. Or I don't know if I did it. I was in an alcoholic blackout."

And significance of all of this is, Paula, is that it goes both ways. It's the prosecution saying that, yes, at some point he admits that maybe he did it. He doesn't know if he did it, but maybe he did it. But on the other hand, for the defense, there are denials and there's this strange circumstance surrounding how these admissions or alleged admissions, as you said, come out.

ZAHN: If you're sitting on the jury and you hear this alleged confession came out under great duress, what are you thinking?

POLITAN: Well that, again, goes to the credibility of that confession. And everyone has watched TV movies where you see the police shine the light in the guys eyes and beat a confession out of him. And that's almost the impression you get from some of these statements. But for the prosecution in this case, the strength of what they're doing is not just one person. If it was just one person that got up there and said that at this one time he alluded to, perhaps, or somehow confessing to this murder, that would be one thing. But you're talking about five different witnesses; some of them at different times.

So from the prosecution point of view, that's the strength of this evidence, is that it's not just one person. They're building a case. So if he said it here, he said it there, he said it here, it must be true, ladies and gentlemen.

ZAHN: And talk about other testimony that can cut both ways here. The jury also heard pre-trial testimony of a man that's now dead, a guy who also knew Michael Skakel. What did he say before he died?

POLITAN: This is another one of those students, Paula, from inside that Elan school. And this was perhaps the one with the most specific evidence, where the alleged confession that he heard had more facts to it. It wasn't so vague as the other ones were. The problem for the prosecution, as you said, this guy died. How did he die? From a drug overdose?

What's the testimony that came before this jury? That when he was testifying in that pre-trial hearing -- the transcript that they're hearing being red to them now because he's dead -- he was high on heroin. He testified, "Yes, an hour before I got to court I took some heroin." So, again, that cuts to his credibility.

And, also, when you look at what he says factually, he gets into specifics and talks about golf clubs. He said Michael Skakel told him he grabbed the driver. But as we know from all the testimony here, it was a six iron, not a driver that was used as the murder weapon. So, again, there's an ability for the defense to attack this testimony.

ZAHN: There was also some stuff that the prosecution tried to claim on Friday, I guess, that maybe the judge didn't allow. And that was on the whole issue of, perhaps, Michael Skakel's file being tampered with at the Elan school?

POLITAN: Well the basis was there was investigator that tried to look into Michael Skakel and his time at the Elan school, and they looked at his file. And apparently his file was a lot smaller than all the other students. So what the prosecution wanted to do was bring in that investigator, have him testify about the small file and somehow try to relate to this jury that something was done to that file to cover something up. The defense argued that, you know, this is another Kennedy conspiracy, and the judge said that he's not going to allow that testimony in. And the jury won't hear that evidence.

ZAHN: I guess we would all have to admit last week's testimony was pretty darn dizzying. What do you expect this week? More of the same?

POLITAN: Well this week the prosecution is going to wind down. We're going to finish today with the reading of the transcript of Gregory Coleman, that other student who allegedly heard Michael Skakel confess, and we'll hear the rest of that. The prosecution says they're going to wind up sometime this week. So from there, then the ball is in the court of the defense. Where do they go with this, and do they put Michael Skakel on the stand?

ZAHN: Put your seat belt on now, Vinnie. We're going to go for a ride with you.

POLITAN: Got it on.

ZAHN: Wow. Is it even weirder than you thought it would be?

POLITAN: This is really an amazing case. And the amazing thing is, is that we're talking about 27 years later and we still every day are having twists and turns and it's a different kind of case and something amazing to watch. as it unfolds each day.

ZAHN: Vinnie Politan of Court TV, delighted to have your insights this morning

POLITAN: All right.

ZAHN: Good luck with your coverage.

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