On Friday, May 4, 2018, The Connecticut Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Michael Skakel, who had been found guilty of murdering his neighbor, 15-year-old Martha Moxley, with a golf club in 1975.The Michael Skakel case spanned more than 25 years and inspired worldwide media coverage. It is worth mentioning that Skakel is the nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, because it is the Kennedy connection that ultimately enabled him to get away with murder.
Ninety people including Ethel Kennedy, her son Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and a son of the former Governor Hugh Carey of New York wrote letters to ask the judge for leniency. In the letters, Skakel was described as a very worthy person with a profound sense of humanity and compassion. Skakel had more than two-dozen supporters crammed into the courtroom for his sentencing. Even though the Judge admonished him for failing to accept responsibility for the horrible crime that had been committed, he received a sentence five years short of the maximum penalty that the judge was allowed to impose under state law. Never mind that Skakel’s victim Martha Moxley was beaten to death with a golf club outside her home. Twelve years after the murder, Skakel was freed from prison on a $1.2 million bond. Money can buy mitigation for the most heinous crimes.
It is also important to note that the use of paradox as a defense requires the services of skilled lawyers and seasoned P.R. professionals who have good media contacts. Paradox doesn’t come without cost. Money can buy loads of paradox. Take Mr. Skakel, who on the night of the crime, just prior to murdering Martha Moxley, had masturbated in a tree while trying to peep into Miss Moxley’s bedroom. Yet in the hands of skilled P.R. practitioners the final paradoxical spin positioned Michael Skakel as a nice man who was kind and caring to many people…except for the young woman he allegedly brutally murdered.
Money Talks and Skakel Walks
by Patricia Vaccarino