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Justices reject Skakel appeal
Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel lost a longshot effort to win reversal of his murder conviction when the Supreme Court on Monday declined to take his case.The justices refused, without comment, to review Skakel's conviction in the beating death of Martha Moxley, his neighbor in Greenwich, Conn., 31 years ago when the two were teenagers. Skakel, 46, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, was convicted in 2002. He is serving 20 years to life in prison. Skakel's lawyer had argued that the deadline for prosecuting the crime expired before his client was arrested in January 2000. At the time of Moxley's killing, Connecticut had a five-year statute of limitations on murder cases that did not involve the death penalty. One year later, in 1976, the legislature removed the five-year deadline. The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld Skakel's conviction, ruling that the legislature intended to remove the deadline for prosecution for all crimes, like Moxley's killing, for which the statute of limitations had not yet expired. That ruling now stands. Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-11-14 |
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