← Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder
Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder
The Joker
01:04:34
Michael Skakel’s defense attorney Mickey Sherman thought the case was a home run, but lost at trial. A hard look at his tactics and strategy raise red flags.
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- [00:01]
Michael Skakel
Smartless Mobile here.
- [00:02]
Andrew Goldman
Did you know that 90% of your phone's data goes over wi fi? So paying for an unlimited data plan doesn't make sense. Not at all, Sean.
- [00:10]
Mickey Sherman
No sense at all. But do you know what does make sense?
- [00:13]
Andrew Goldman
Why Smartless Mobile? Ooh, yeah, you could cut your bill in half when you switch from an unlimited plan. Pretty simple math. Unless you're Jason math, it is not my strong suit.
- [00:23]
Vito Colucci
Smart less mo bals.
- [00:26]
Andrew Goldman
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- [01:07]
Mickey Sherman
Can you all hear me? Okay, the good news here is that you can put the pens away. There's no citations. This is absolutely the entertainment section of this seminar. Hopefully I also bring the narcissist TV lawyer definition to a new high. I'm only going to talk about this one case and having fun with it.
- [01:27]
Andrew Goldman
On October 18, 2001, Las Vegas was pretty much a ghost town. A month before, terrorists had flown passenger jets into the World Trade center and the Pentagon. Americans, understandably, weren't in the mood to fly anywhere or celebrate anything. Casinos on the Strip had laid off thousands of workers. Jay Leno came in and performed a few free shows for anyone in town who felt like laughing. But it turns out the Tonight show host wasn't the only funny man headlining in Vegas. Michael Skakel's attorney, Mickey Sherman, the self described narcissist TV lawyer you just heard from, was standing in a windowless hotel ballroom in front of about 50 defense attorneys who were earning continuing legal education hours, which state bars require of attorneys. Michael Skakel's trial was still six months away, but his defense attorney had much to share about not only his legal strategy, but his philosophy on trying a big case. Specifically, Michael Skakels. He began by providing his media bonafides.
- [02:28]
Mickey Sherman
I'm one of those schmucks every night on one of the shows talking about, you know, whatever bullshit case is going on, whether it's O.J. or Menendez or whatever. And I. I've had a couple of high profile cases, nothing like this. But I thought that I know how to handle this, I can deal with the media. And boy, was I wrong. The most damning part about this case is the slant and the media bias. And that's really what my lecture is about. So I'm gonna start you off. I got a bunch of video stuff to bore you to tears.
- [02:58]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman proceeded to give his twist on the old expression, if you love what you do, you won't work a day in your life.
- [03:04]
Mickey Sherman
I think you gotta have fun with it. I mean, too many people just look upon our jobs as absolute drudges in the trenches. And for better or for worse, I've never been someone, I certainly have fun with it, and I probably have too much fun, which will probably be the primary criticism.
- [03:20]
Andrew Goldman
You'll have criticism, and a lot of it, as you'll learn, is exactly what was heading down the pike for Sherman. Though at that time, he probably didn't see it coming. In his Vegas presentation, in an ethically questionable move, Sherman provided a bit of history of his two plus years representing Michael in various hearings. How he had argued that because the crime had been committed when Michael was 15, he should have been tried as a juvenile, which would mean that he would serve no prison time if convicted. The state had countered that because Michael was now 41, he should be charged as an adult.
- [03:55]
Mickey Sherman
We then finally come to, we got a reasonable clause hearing. Not a probable cause hearing, but a reasonable clause hearing. I have no idea what that means. When I do these news conferences outside the courthouse, people would say, well, in the juvenile court, what happens here? And I go, I don't know. I've never handled a juvenile court case which will give my client a lot of feeling confidence. My better line usually is when they ask me a question I don't know the answer to, I don't know. You should check with a legal expert on that.
- [04:17]
Andrew Goldman
Mickey's jokes glossed over the fact that he batted a big goose egg in court. Michael was ultimately charged as an adult. For many lawyers, that day might have signaled ignominious defeat. But you wouldn't know it from how Sherman depicted the loss. He followed up with an anecdote about yucking it up at a restaurant with Italian American character actors Vincent Curatola and Dominic Cianese.
- [04:41]
Mickey Sherman
This is really hysterical. That night, as most of you would be in the law library researching. Instead, I went out to New York with friends and went out to dinner to have fun. And the guys I was with are two of the guys in the show, the Sopranos, Uncle Junior and Vinny, who's head of the New York mob. And I meet them for dinner. That's the way I research my case. And they are. They are railing as I'm a hero. I said, what? What did you get? The guy got arrested. How can you guys think I'm doing a good job? Are you shitting me? The way you got you look this. Told them to go fuck themselves. That was the best thing I could have ever done. These guys were so. They were so proud of me. People would come in, the wrestler say, did you see Mickey today? Yeah, I told them to go themselves. Oh, man, what a litmus test. That's a true story.
- [05:32]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman hadn't actually told anyone to F themselves that day, but no matter. He then cycled through dozens of media clips. He explained he had them all because he had a VCR at the ready at home so he could hit the record button whenever he was on tv. Everything he played either featured him or talking heads talking about him, like Dominic Dunne.
- [05:52]
Mickey Sherman
Has anyone ever read any of Dunn's books? He hates defense lawyers and thinks that everybody's guilty.
- [05:57]
Andrew Goldman
But then Sherman played a clip of Dunn complimenting one of his cross examinations.
- [06:01]
Mickey Sherman
But he's a wonderful guy, true judge of characters.
- [06:05]
Andrew Goldman
He discussed some of the books written about the case with some surprising capsule reviews.
- [06:10]
Mickey Sherman
And the last one is Mark Fuhrman's brilliant book, Murder in Greenwich.
- [06:15]
Andrew Goldman
You may remember the role this book played in the Moxley case, how its publication coincided with the state's attorney's decision to call a grand jury and ultimately prosecute Michael. How could Sherman describe as Brilliant the book that got his client tried for murder? Well, he provided an answer.
- [06:32]
Linda Kenny Baden
Actually.
- [06:32]
Mickey Sherman
He and I have become good friends because we do. We do all these TV shows together and we scream at each other, and then we go out to dinner and stuff like that. So I guess I'm somewhat hypocritical.
- [06:39]
Andrew Goldman
He offered insight into his novel media strategy relating how he'd recently been pursued by Tina Brown, the magazine editor, who wanted an interview with Sherman for her new magazine, Talking. I actually worked for Tina and Talk magazine at this time. This is a pretty small world we're dealing with. It was Tina Brown, who, you might recall, resuscitated Dominic Dunne's career when she hired him to write about his daughter's murder for Vanity Fair. Like I said, small world. Sherman said he initially resisted Tina's solicitations.
- [07:08]
Mickey Sherman
It's a Murder trial. I don't want to piss anybody off. I make too many comments about it now. I shouldn't do it. So she started having me invited to all the A parties in New York. I'm getting invited to the launch party for Sex and the City. I'm going. I'm just going to the great parties and having a great time. And I say to Tina, you're playing me like a fine Stradivarius. And it's working. As I said, the narcissism and that. You have to understand that the case isn't about you. It's about your client and the defense. Here's where I went into a fugue state and just totally, totally forgot about that. I still didn't want to do it. So she says, all right, I'll do the interview anywhere you want. I go anywhere. She says, yeah, okay. The Academy Awards and all the cool parties and this is what happens.
- [07:56]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman says Brown secured him tickets to the 2000 Academy Awards. He acknowledged that he'd been hearing from attorneys who'd represented high profile clients and were concerned about how much they'd seen his mug on tv, including Barry Scheck, co founder of the Innocence Project and one of OJ Simpson's so called dream team lawyers.
- [08:14]
Mickey Sherman
Meanwhile, Barry Scheck, who's a good friend and a great advisor on these things, had just sent me an email. Mick, you're doing a good job. Keep below the radar. Keep the public appearances down.
- [08:23]
Andrew Goldman
Mickey didn't keep below the radar for years to come. He could be seen splashed across television screens reveling in the media attention of the Skakel case. And his trial became a cable TV.
- [08:33]
Mickey Sherman
Event with his defense attorney.
- [08:35]
Andrew Goldman
Mickey Sherman, a frequent guest, joins us.
- [08:37]
Jessica Walker
Also joining us now here in the studio is Mike Michael Sherman, a criminal.
- [08:40]
Andrew Goldman
Defense attorney who joining me now, Mark Fuhrman. And still with me, Mickey Sherman, who was a prosecutor. A little over a decade after his resounding defeat at the hands of prosecutor Jonathan Benedict, Sherman once again found himself in a courtroom for the Skakel case. Though he no longer represented Michael, the glow of his earlier celebrity had faded and the jovial energy of his Vegas seminar was muted. But nonetheless, all eyes were on him. Michael's conviction, fought relentlessly by his appellate attorneys, was at a precipice. If the lawyers could prove that Mickey Sherman had provided ineffective counsel to his most famous client, there was a chance Michael's guilty verdict could be vacated. The question that hung in the air with Michael's freedom in the balance, had Mickey Sherman, with his press junkets and celebrity parties like Icarus flown too close to the sun. I'm Andrew Goldman from NBC News studios and highly replaceable productions. This is dead certain. The Martha Moxley murder.
- [09:58]
Michael Skakel
In Connecticut tonight, a verdict that many seasoned trial watchers said would never happen. 27 years after a young woman named Martha Moxley was found dead at her home, a jury has convicted a Kennedy.
- [10:10]
Vito Colucci
Relative of her murder.
- [10:12]
Andrew Goldman
On Friday, June 7, 2002, minutes after the verdict in Michael Skakel's trial was announced, Sherman stepped in front of the phalanx of reporters and expressed his deep disappointment.
- [10:24]
Mickey Sherman
All right, let me make a few comments to save a couple of questions. Yes, we are bitterly disappointed. There's no way to hide it. This is certainly the most upsetting verdict I've ever had or will ever have in my life. But I will tell you, as long as there's a breath in my body, this case is not over as far as I'm concerned.
- [10:45]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman's quest to fight for Michael's release, however, couldn't begin that day because he was due in midtown to do Larry King Live on CNN alongside Dominic Dunn and John and Dorothy Moxley. Dunn, of course, had been as pleasantly surprised by the Skakel conviction as he had been outraged by the Simpson acquittal.
- [11:03]
Mickey Sherman
That was high drama, absolutely high drama. Dorothy Moxley, a woman I admire enormously, has finally got justice.
- [11:13]
Andrew Goldman
Dunn couldn't have asked for better timing to be all over the press, because less than two weeks later, his Court TV show Power, Privilege and Justice premiered. It's cover art featuring his face set in front of an illustration that looks remarkably like the Skakel's Belhaven mansion. A love mobile in the drive, dozens of hundred dollar bills raining from the sky. Four days after the verdict, Court TV threw a party in Dunn's honor in a midtown Manhattan restaurant with sweeping views of the city. One bold faced name mentioned in the New York Daily News coverage of the party caught the Skakel's eyes. Mickey Sherman. Dunn was quoted in the paper saying Sherman was the only defense attorney he'd ever spoken to after any trial he'd covered. Seeing coverage of Mickey Sherman at a party celebrating one of the primary architects of Michael's prosecution disappointed the Skakel family, but didn't exactly surprise them. One day during the trial, the Skakels had watched aghast as Dunn, followed by a smiling Sherman, climbed out of the same limousine. And Sherman seemed to spend an awful lot of time clowning around with Mark Fuhrman, too. Bobby Kennedy wrote in his book that at one point he called Sherman during trial and told him the behavior was killing Michael's morale. I can't help it, Bobby said. He told him I'm a suck up. After Michael's conviction, Sherman did visit him at Garner prison in Newtown.
- [12:34]
Michael Skakel
Mickey did come to see me, but it was after days and days. And when he did, he called a press conference and he showed up on his Harley, which the prison was really angry about because they. I don't know, whatever he did really got them angry, you know, and he. The first words out of his mouth were, you know, again, we'll beat them on appeal. Don't worry about this. We're going to appeal this.
- [13:05]
Andrew Goldman
He shut up once more a week or two later and never appeared again. Within a few days of the verdict, Michael brought on a new team of lawyers to handle the appellate process. As I've mentioned, I spent a lot of time pouring over Michael's trial transcripts. One thing I am not is an attorney. But some of the things that happened during the trial seemed odd to me, Starting with those elan confession testimonies we talked about last episode. And the more I stewed on the trial, the more things I identified that seemed seriously wrong about what had happened in that courtroom. We're gonna talk through all of it. But at this point, I needed some perspective. Mickey Sherman wasn't responding to calls or emails to his office, and I've since heard he's in assisted living. So that's how I ended up here. All right. Let the records show Linda's wielding the five iron. Six iron. Six iron, six iron. It's a rainy Saturday morning. I'm in a high tech media room in the luxurious Manhattan high rise apartment building where Linda Kenny Baden lives. I didn't even know media rooms and fancy buildings were a thing until the doorman ushered me in. I thought initially I would sort of, you know, ask you to introduce yourself, who you are, what your relationship is to the case.
- [14:24]
Linda Kenny Baden
I usually am pretty okay with microphones, but normally they're attached to my lapel. Hi, my name is Linda Kenny Baden. I am a trial attorney.
- [14:32]
Andrew Goldman
Kenny Baden was briefly part of Michael's defense team and has been an informal advisor on legal matters since. When I reached out to her, I was surprised that she'd asked me to bring along a six iron golf club. I soon learned why. As soon as I dropped my bag, she grabbed the club and started swinging it at my face in slow motion. I was apparently standing in for Martha Moxley.
- [14:56]
Linda Kenny Baden
Let's assume you're hit here, right Whack. And that's the imprint. She has striations right here on her chin.
- [15:04]
Andrew Goldman
Right.
- [15:04]
Linda Kenny Baden
She's got imprint marks in the golf club.
- [15:07]
Andrew Goldman
In the autopsy photos. There's a deep horseshoe shaped wound on Martha's forehead that quite perfectly lines up with the markings on the Tony Panna club head as well as scratches on her chin.
- [15:17]
Linda Kenny Baden
When I looked at those pictures last night, it's the first time I've seen them in color. When I look at it, that imprint's not made. It's not made when she's on the ground. This side imprint, because you can't get there. She's standing up.
- [15:30]
Andrew Goldman
She begins laying her fingers on the grip of the club. Recall that the handle of the Tony Penna six iron with its leatherette grip bearing Ann Skakel's name was missing from the crime scene. The prosecution argued that there was an obvious reason it would be taken to hide the last name of the murderer. But was there an equally plausible explanation?
- [15:49]
Linda Kenny Baden
So why would you take a grip if it's broken off? Because you want to take your fingerprints away.
- [15:55]
Andrew Goldman
Right?
- [15:55]
Linda Kenny Baden
I mean, everybody knows it's a Tony Pennant golf club. The only thing you're worried about is the fingerprints on the golf club.
- [16:01]
Andrew Goldman
I hadn't expected all this action. As she simulated killing me over and over, it dawned on me that Kenny Baden was showing me how. Had she been given the chance, she would have defended Michael at trial. I was getting a glimpse at what might have been. I've known Kenny Baden for now close to a decade. Were I ever arrested for murdering someone famous, she would absolutely be the recipient of my one free jailhouse phone call. Kenny Bodden's a Jersey girl. She's flashy. Patent leather shoes with a big buckle spelling Chanel are eye catching, but not quite as eye catching as her oddly shaped pointed fuchsia. Those nails I was just admiring, it's like a metallic kind of. They're fantastic.
- [16:41]
Linda Kenny Baden
Thank you. They're actually called coffin nails.
- [16:44]
Andrew Goldman
Coffin nails.
- [16:44]
Linda Kenny Baden
I went to CrimeCon, so I had them reshaped for CrimeCon.
- [16:49]
Andrew Goldman
I'm not at all surprised to learn that Linda Kenny Baden was booked at CrimeCon. She's a big deal in the true crime world, both for her own resume on the defense teams of big name murder defendants like Casey Anthony and Aaron Hernandez, but also because she's part of a true crime power couple. Since 2000, she's been married to famed forensic pathologist Michael Baden. He's a contributor on Fox News. And when we spoke in 2023, she was a host on the Law and Crime network.
- [17:15]
Linda Kenny Baden
Everybody wants to be on TV for some reason, but what gets you on TV is being prepared and being a good lawyer, I think. I mean, I would be embarrassed if I went to a case unprepared.
- [17:27]
Andrew Goldman
Kenny Baden hasn't just been on TV plenty. Her work has also been portrayed on TV in the 2013 HBO movie Phil Spector.
- [17:36]
Mickey Sherman
They're gonna convict him of I just don't like you.
- [17:40]
Jessica Walker
Well, then he's gonna need a good lawyer.
- [17:43]
Andrew Goldman
Kenny Baden served as Spectre's attorney in his first murder trial and earned his freedom, albeit temporarily, after a hung jury led to a mistrial. Al Pacino played the title role of the music producer with a love of crazy wigs and handguns.
- [17:56]
Linda Kenny Baden
And Kenny Baden, let's not forget Helen Marin. I know. I was very honored to be played by her and very honored that David Mamet took the time to write a screenplay about my client. I say my client. He says about me. I say my client.
- [18:11]
Andrew Goldman
The distinction Kenny Baden makes may sound like a small point, but in her world, it is incredibly important. Top tier trial attorneys in high profile cases get a lot of attention and can develop enormous egos. A pitfall is forgetting that their clients must always be the priority, because there are few responsibilities I imagine are more daunting, frightening even, than preparing to defend someone against a charge as serious as Murder One that could deprive them of their freedom for decades or even the rest of their lives. The ones who are truly great at it sweat the details and prepare as if their own lives depend on the verdict.
- [18:50]
Linda Kenny Baden
And that's why the one thing I lack in my life is sleep. Because I do prepare. Preparation is pretty much everything. And I'm never as prepared as I want to be, even though I'm probably overly prepared, more prepared than many people.
- [19:04]
Andrew Goldman
Mickey Sherman, as you may have intuited from that lecture we played at the top of the episode, is a different kind of defense attorney. And he always had been. And he might have just remained a hammy made for TV lawyer with a raging ego. But the thing about seeking the spotlight is sometimes it shines where you don't want it to.
- [19:33]
Jessica Walker
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- [19:51]
Vito Colucci
Did that.
- [19:52]
Michael Skakel
Done.
- [19:52]
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- [20:34]
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- [21:05]
Andrew Goldman
After squeaking through UConn law with straight Cs in the early 1970s, Mickey Sherman struggled to make ends meet working public sector jobs in Stanford with a wife and two young kids to feed. He decided to try his hand at being a professional game show contestant, but soon realized the money wouldn't be steady enough. So he returned to private practice, developing a reputation as a Courthouse Jester. In 1985, he represented the pro wrestler the Iron Sheik, charged with roughing up a gas station attendant on the Connecticut Turnpike, and hosted a videotaped appeal for leniency featuring a number of wrestling stars like classy Freddie Blassie.
- [21:40]
Mickey Sherman
Your Honor is well aware that the Sheik has been charged with assault in the third degree in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Right now we have Freddie Blassi, his well known manager. I'd like you to tell Judge Rotman and the prosecutor what your opinion Just.
- [21:52]
Michael Skakel
A minute, you pencil neck geek.
- [21:53]
Andrew Goldman
Don't interrupt me.
- [21:55]
Michael Skakel
Keep quiet, Sherman.
- [21:57]
Andrew Goldman
Once, Sherman was defending a man charged with shooting a duck from his yacht and showed up to court with two webbed feet sticking out of his briefcase. Sherman was a jokester whose bread and butter was defending Connecticut residents pop for drunk driving. Linda Kenny Baden was also aware of another facet of Sherman.
- [22:16]
Linda Kenny Baden
I knew of his reputation, winning the case of the PTSD for the veteran. And I think that's how everybody knew Mickey, because that was a big deal to win that case.
- [22:28]
Andrew Goldman
In 1989 in Stamford, in broad daylight, a 41 year old Vietnam veteran named Roger Ligon shot an unarmed 22 year old man three times in the chest, back and head, killing him following an argument over a parking space. Citing PTSD from the horrible things Ligon witnessed at war, Sherman secured a not guilty by insanity verdict. The case was broadcast in full by the just launched Court tv. Sherman was overnight both a legal star and and a star in the new business of TV lawyers. So when Sherman called Kenny Baden in early 2000 about the Skakel case, she was happy to hear from him. Sherman wanted her help on suppressing statements Michael had made at the Elan school and knew she'd had prior success with similar issues. When Kenny Baden arrived at Sherman's Stanford office for a meeting with the legal team, she came loaded for bear on not just the Elan issue, but the entire case. I know this because I've marveled over a memo she prepared and distributed to Sherman and the five other attorneys crowded into his office. It would be more than two years before the trial commenced, but Kenny Baden had already pieced together a roadmap that could have guided the entire defense strategy and possibly led to an acquittal. Ultimately, she wasn't retained as part of Michael's defense team, but she continued to observe from the sidelines.
- [23:48]
Linda Kenny Baden
I was watching what was going on in the case because Michael was still, as far as I was concerned, my client, even though I was not part of the case. So I wanted to keep watching and I would send notes and things and calls, say, you should be doing this, you should be doing that, right? And they're just being, you know, ignored.
- [24:08]
Andrew Goldman
The first two weeks of September of 2001, eight months before Michael's trial would commence, Kenny Baden and her husband happened to be speaking at a biological sciences conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Steven Skakel, then working for americares, using DNA to identify Bosnian war dead discovered in mass graves, also happened to be there. Kenny Baden asked to have a word with him.
- [24:30]
Linda Kenny Baden
You know, I hemmed and hauled and I said, stephen, I have talked to you. Your brother is going to be convicted if he keeps Mickey as his attorney.
- [24:41]
Andrew Goldman
What does Steven say?
- [24:43]
Linda Kenny Baden
He sighed and he said, linda, there's not much I can do about it. Michael is so wedded to Mickey. He rides his motorcycle with him. He's like, he's his friend. And Michael is so invested in what Mickey has Told him about the case that I can't, there's nothing I can do about it.
- [25:07]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman instilled great confidence in Michael, who at that juncture would have certainly been yearning for some.
- [25:13]
Michael Skakel
I'm not a lawyer, I can only take. I was confident because of people I had confident and trust in, trusted him.
- [25:22]
Andrew Goldman
I asked Steven Skakel about his thoughts on Sherman. It keeps kind of hitting me because I said, I was talking to Linda about it and she said, Michael, you know, they were riding motorcycles. Michael was, he was believing what Mickey was telling him at the time. Did the whole family. Yeah. What was he telling you?
- [25:40]
Michael Skakel
This thing, I'd be a slam dunk, no problem. It's beaten easy case. There's no evidence, no eyewitnesses. Michael makes that analogy. Sometimes it seems kind of ridiculous, but you get on an airplane, you assume that the guy who's flying the plane knows what the he's doing.
- [26:00]
Andrew Goldman
Despite some early red flags, Michael stuck with a guy flying his plane even as Sherman continued to eject his co pilots. By the time Michael Skakel's trial began, Sherman's dream team consisted of four lawyers. Himself, his son Mark, just three and a half years out from passing the bar with limited criminal law experience. 28 year old Jason Throne, who'd graduated the University of Florida Law school and only two and a half years prior had passed the bar. And finally there was a 27 year old Canadian emigre named Steve Stefan Seeger, who at that point had yet to work on a murder case. Seeger told me he was a little freaked out to discover he'd stepped into some legal equivalent of the Hunger Games.
- [26:40]
Michael Skakel
Linda Kenney's great. You know, I really enjoy her. Her style sort of like more consistent with the way I would approach a case. And then she's there one day and then she's gone the next. Grudberg's there one day and then he's gone the next.
- [26:51]
Andrew Goldman
That's attorney David Grudberg, who is part of Michael's defense team.
- [26:55]
Michael Skakel
And as a young lawyer, and I think I've told people this before, like I would wake up every day and think, man, we got a meeting today. Maybe I'm on the chopping block today. I mean, you know, if they can chop Grubberg or they can chop Linda Kenney, I mean certainly I could get chopped.
- [27:09]
Andrew Goldman
Why did they get. Well, why did that? I don't know. You might have a guess or two. Hold tight, we'll come back to that. But what's clear already is that things were looking a bit Strange in Sherman's trial preparations. Still, even if Kenny Baden was gone, Sherman had her memo. All he had to do was read and follow it. One of the items at the top of her list was jury pool and jury consultant.
- [27:34]
Linda Kenny Baden
Whenever I try a high profile case or I have a big case that's worth a lot of money, I have a trial. It used to be called jury consultant. It's now called trial consultant. Really, what is our jury pool going to be? So I had said right off the bat that that's what we should be looking at to start with.
- [27:50]
Andrew Goldman
But Sherman did exactly the opposite. Operating solo without the help of a trial consultant. During voir dire jury selection, Mickey Sherman, nary a dream team in sight, did something incredible. On April 4, 2002, a 40 year old man named Brian Wood stepped into the box. Sherman looked over his jury questionnaire, but he didn't really need to. They already knew each other a bit. Wood was a Darien cop. Here's how the interview began. There's no audio, so I'll read both parts. Sherman and I'm trying to remember. I can't even tell you the cases that you and I have dealt with. Anything that I should remember. Anything significant. Wood Tuccinardi got assaulted 11 years ago by him. Sherman, my client assaulted you? Wood? Yes. Sherman continued by asking if Wood knew any Greenwich cops who had worked on the Moxley case. In fact, Wood told him he rode motorcycles with his friend Jim Lunney. You might recall that Lunny was the Greenwich cop who, along with his partner, Tom Keegan, was the first detective assigned to the Martha moxley murder in 1975 and who stayed on the case for 12 years through his 1987 retirement. Lunning was the bad cop of the duo, the one who liked grabbing lapels. He was also a longtime partner of none other than Detective Frank Garr. So what did Sherman do about the Darien cop who had once been assaulted by one of his clients and was close friends with a detective who had spent years of his life trying to put his Skakel away? He picked him for the jury. Vito Kalucci was Sherman's primary investigator on the Skakel case. He'd been a longtime detective with the Stanford Police Department before becoming a PI and had deep ties in the Fairfield county law enforcement community. He wasn't in court that day, but he heard what happened later.
- [29:39]
Vito Colucci
I knew many people on the Darien Police Department. I remember the night that one of the top cops there called me up and said, you better talk to Mickey Sherman. I Said, why? He said he just put Brian Wood on the jury. I said, what? He said, is he nuts or something? I called Mickey late that night. I said, you put Brian Wood. He said, yeah, yeah, that's going to really look good that we won the case. And I had a cop on it. And I said, oh, Mick, I don't know what you're doing. And the more I talk about it now, the more I think to myself as I'm talking to you, that this was craziness by him.
- [30:23]
Andrew Goldman
And what, I wondered, was Kenny Bodden's reaction when she heard this news?
- [30:28]
Linda Kenny Baden
The reaction was, what the fuck are you doing? That's the reaction. I mean, I hate to be vulgar, but that's the reaction. And what the fuck are you doing putting a police officer on the jury?
- [30:39]
Andrew Goldman
Why don't you.
- [30:41]
Linda Kenny Baden
Because we all know that there's a camaraderie with police officers. You're not going to put them on the jury. I don't care whether they say, I can be fair or not. You just not. It's the most ridiculous thing.
- [30:52]
Andrew Goldman
He wasn't done. Though. Sherman failed to use one of his 19 peremptory challenges to dismiss a woman named Laura Copeland, who on the stand said that her good friend's mother was close with Dorothy Moxley. Copeland became juror number six.
- [31:07]
Linda Kenny Baden
Why would you do that? They're invested in the case. How are they going to go back to their friend and say, you know, I found them not guilty? They can't.
- [31:15]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman would later say that he had Michael weigh in on every juror. But Michael, of course, was not the criminal defense equivalent of the adult in the room. But Sherman wasn't done setting out, apparently, to run a completely backwards defense. Back to Linda Kenny Baden's agenda, which laid out such a clear, effective trial strategy. Another of the items on our list, pics of Michael back at the time of the crime to show how small he was during the investigation. The state seemed to be of the opinion that their killer or killers were. Would be capable of great force. Connecticut's chief criminalist, Dr. Henry Lee, told a reporter in the mid-90s, we do know there's a lot of strength involved, okay? Because it is brutal, brutal murder, and you need a lot of strength. Anyone who's seen the autopsy photos would have to concur.
- [32:06]
Linda Kenny Baden
You see that wield in that golf club and those. Those wounds, that's somebody, you know, that's not like a little runt. That's somebody who's angry and strong. And also because she had to be dragged 80ft. So that wasn't somebody who couldn't drag somebody who's at that point basically dead weight, 80ft. You know, if you saw Michael, who's. What was he, 41 at the time he was tried, if I recall. I mean, he was a big, hulking guy by then, but in 1975, he was a big, hulking guy. He was a little tiny, you know, kid. I mean, basically he was a kid. I mean, he was just as much a kid as Martha Moxley was a kid.
- [32:45]
Andrew Goldman
Recall when Michael arrived at the elan School in 1978, three years after the murder, Fellow classmate Kim Freehill was shocked at how undersized he was. He was a weakling.
- [32:55]
Michael Skakel
He was a sharp.
- [32:57]
Andrew Goldman
At trial, the prosecution introduced a family photo that Michael's childhood friend Andy Pugh testified depicted Michael looking just as he had in the mid-70s when Martha Moxley was murdered. In the photo taken with his father and siblings, Michael's good looking, curly haired, surfer type, teen, and he's strapping, perhaps physically capable of the crime. But there was a problem. The photo wasn't taken in 1975. It was taken four years later when Michael was 19. Sherman only introduced one photo of Michael taken in 1977. So jurors still never got to see what Michael looked like in 1975. As you might be able to guess by now, Michael's alcoholic father, Rush Skakel, wasn't the kind of man who kept meticulously cataloged photo albums. So after the guilty verdict, his brother Steven Skakel went hunting to find someone who might have an actual picture of Michael from 1975.
- [33:55]
Michael Skakel
We had gone for years, every Thanksgiving down to Florida to a place to spend it with my grandparents and another family that the father worked with my father, so him and his family would come as well. And they took photos every year. I asked them to look through the carousels of slides, and they couldn't find any from that contemporary year. I said, do you mind if I look?
- [34:29]
Andrew Goldman
Going through each slide, Stephen, too thought he'd come up short. But then he squinted into one showing two people playing doubles on a tennis court. The figure on the right was clearly his brother, Rush Jr. The skinny lass with the long hair on the left.
- [34:43]
Michael Skakel
I thought it was a girl. When I looked at that and I looked in the light, I was like, turned out to be Michael.
- [34:50]
Andrew Goldman
Is the slide dated?
- [34:51]
Michael Skakel
Yes, it is.
- [34:52]
Andrew Goldman
You can show me the date. I mean, because people will ask. They'll say, oh, you're playing fast and loose. Steven showed me that slide, which has a Stamped imprint of the date it was developed, December 1975. When I laid eyes on it for the first time, I gasped. Stephen was right. Michael looked like a girl. And not even a very big girl. I know from experience that 15 year old boys can be big. My son Charlie's 15. He wrestles, he lifts weights. He's 5' 11 with huge size 11ft and a 34 inch waist. He's a little gawky, but he's basically adult size. But the Michael in this photo looks so tiny next to his own 19 year old brother, Rush Jr. Skinny Legs, likely prepubescent. If I had to guess, he's no taller than 57 with a waist certainly no bigger than 29 inches. Steven subsequently found another photo taken on a sailboat in Nantucket in the summer of 1975. Same thing. Feminine, slight, and tragically sweet looking. Shown the photo years later during an appellate hearing, Sherman didn't even recognize that it was Michael. Sherman blew it again. But hard though it may be to believe, these big mistakes weren't even Sherman's most monumental screw ups. I could spend an entire season enumerating the things that Mickey Sherman did, or more accurately failed to do, that doomed his client. But here are just a few. He didn't explain the concept of, or for that matter, even utter the words reasonable doubt during his closing arguments. Something that floored Tommy skakel's attorney of 20 years, many Margolis.
- [36:33]
Mickey Sherman
I kept waiting for reasonable doubt. Anytime you're in a criminal case, reasonable doubt, you start with that, you end with that. I never heard it. Not once.
- [36:46]
Andrew Goldman
And then there were the two Rochester, New York cops who Mickey's investigator, Vito Colucci later testified in a post conviction hearing he asked Mickey to reach out to Mickey.
- [36:57]
Vito Colucci
Didn't even tell me to do it. I just my own. As I was uncovering things, I spoke to both of them. They knew Greg Coleman. They didn't. They thought maybe it was a crank call because when I told him he was the key witness for the prosecution, they said no, no way. This guy's a heavy duty drug addict. You can't believe anything he says. They had a ton of dealings with him in the past, arresting him and they said, we'll gladly go to court and testify. All of that for you. Veto. So I, as soon as I ended the interview, I literally ran to Mickey's office just to tell Nick, you got to talk to these two guys. Two Rochester policemen. They can blow the case open on the star witness, Greg Coleman. He said, okay, no problem, no problem. Guy no problem, guy.
- [37:51]
Andrew Goldman
No problem, guy became a Mickey Sherman mantra. Whenever Kaluchi asked for updates on potential witnesses. Colucci told me that in addition to the two Rochester policemen, he also visited with Greg Coleman's mother and brother before the trial. Colucci says they told him that they overheard Coleman's conversation with Gar, witnessed him say he heard Michael Skickle confess it alone. They said it shocked and confused them.
- [38:14]
Vito Colucci
Yeah. After Frank Gar left the interview with Greg Coleman, Greg's mother and Greg's brother said, what the heck were you talking about? We didn't know anything about that. You. You don't. You made that all up. You know, nothing that was. None of that was true. Why'd you go into all of that? And his exact words were. At least what they told me was, be quiet. I'm gonna get a reward for this.
- [38:41]
Andrew Goldman
Did you tell Mickey that you'd had a conversation with the mother and the brother, and presumably these would have been witnesses?
- [38:47]
Mickey Sherman
No.
- [38:48]
Vito Colucci
Yeah. Yeah. I don't really remember how he handled that, but he. He didn't bring them in. As it got closer to court, I would say, mick, you got to call this. This person here. You got to call that person there. Yeah, don't worry. It came to where it was a week before the court started. And I would ask him, I said, you didn't call any of these people? And he said, no, he didn't. And he thought in his mind the case was going to be a slam dunk, that he wouldn't need that.
- [39:26]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman also failed to hire an expert witness to contextualize the Elan confession testimony. And there was an obvious choice for this. Richard Offshore, a University of California, Berkeley sociologist, considered the go to expert on the topic of coercive social control and so called influence interrogation. Afsha had specifically studied how the power structures and social dynamics of institutions like Synanon, which Elan was modeled upon, can breed false confessions. At one of Michael's appeals, Afsha testified that Sherman, instead of bringing in a real expert, tried to play one in the courtroom, offering his own analysis on how Elan functioned. The judge shut him down. So the jury never got any expert insights. And for years, Steven Skakel's been telling me that right after Michael's conviction, he went to Sherman's office to collect all the case materials. There were three boxes of police files. One had pages that looked like they'd been reviewed. They were wrinkled thick, the way pages get after they'd been handled. But the other two boxes didn't even.
- [40:28]
Michael Skakel
Look like they were. Had been Gone through. When you go through papers, these seemed as if they were just copied at FedEx or Kinko's. It didn't look like there were any dog ears on the papers. It didn't look. It didn't look like.
- [40:44]
Andrew Goldman
There was no notations on them, no. Stephen believes that Mickey may have never even looked at a substantial chunk of printed discovery. If he's right, it would be just one of the many indicators that Mickey wasn't totally on top of the evidence in Michael's case. I recently came across a letter on prosecutor Jonathan Benedict's stationery dated March 5, 2002, less than a month before jury selection began. It reads, inspector Frank R. Informs me that no one from your office has yet reviewed or copied any of the large number of cassette tapes that were made in the course of witness interviews during the investigation of the case. These are essentially all recordings of interviews that are recited in the body of police reports with which you are furnished in the state's initial disclosures. Benedict included a 24 page inventory, 85 cassettes and 11 reel to reel tapes, some of which you've heard in this series. With only weeks until the biggest trial of his career commenced, apparently neither Sherman nor anyone from his office had bothered to even look at them. I kept coming across more and more obvious signs that Mickey might have been a bit distracted. Steven Skakel recalls him becoming more and more disengaged as the trial went on.
- [41:58]
Michael Skakel
He spent, you know, at lunchtime every day. In the beginning, yeah, he ate with us. Then it morphed into we didn't see him. He was either giving interviews or hanging out with the media at lunch and not us, which was infuriating. And going out and, you know, I'm not saying party, I don't know what he was doing. I didn't see him.
- [42:20]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman's head just didn't seem to be in the game. Steven mentioned that on more than one occasion, Sherman showed up to court looking exhausted. I asked Chris Steele, the bodyguard Mickey hired, who was also there before court every morning. Stephen said to me once that they showed up at trial in the car and he kind of had this feeling that Mickey might have actually even been up all night, like out all night, easily, really. The man was living a rock star lifestyle to try and mirror and keep up with his rock star best friend. That rock star best friend being Steele's other client, Michael Bolton. I don't want to damn anyone's behaviors, but anything is possible when you are living it up on someone else's dime. The more I learned about the case, the more unbelievable it became. Mickey's defense of Michael wasn't just weak, it was baffling. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.
- [43:28]
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- [45:01]
Andrew Goldman
One of the more bizarre stories I heard about Mickey Sherman was told to me by private investigator Vito Colucci. In the lead up to Michael Skakel's trial. Colucci said Sherman had a fling with a female client who, after one of their dates went south, was furious. The following day, she walked straight into his office and stole his laptop from his desk. Here's Kaluchi now.
- [45:23]
Vito Colucci
I got a call, a panic call from Mickey. She took my computer. Well, I don't know where the heck she is. I got all my notes, I got my clothing on there, everything. You gotta get it back. She was gonna make copies of everything and do the best to hurt him in some kind of way.
- [45:43]
Andrew Goldman
Colucci went to the woman's house where he encountered a frantic man in his underwear who said that not only had the woman stolen Sherman's laptop, she had stolen his car. Cops were called, and after several hours, both car and laptop were returned to their owners.
- [45:59]
Vito Colucci
So that, you know, that's a little bit of how the case went, Andrew. You know.
- [46:09]
Andrew Goldman
There were just so many wild stories about Mickey. I had a hard time wrapping my head around how someone could operate this way and still expect to win a high stakes murder trial. I wondered, was it possible he didn't actually care whether he lost? Could there even have been some hidden incentive for him to tank the case? I asked Vito Kaluchi about it. Is there any possibility that you think.
- [46:33]
Vito Colucci
Mickey might have thrown this case? No, no, no. He had too much of an ego. He needed. He wanted this case so bad. I mean, you know, sitting in his office with him on the phone with media and the whole bit. Or his real good friends, hey, you know what I'm going to do after I win this now? I'm just gonna do TV and whatever, write books and the whole bit.
- [46:59]
Andrew Goldman
Stefan Seger, one of Michael's attorneys, whom you heard from earlier in the episode, agrees.
- [47:05]
Michael Skakel
That would be unlike him to throw a case now. I think Mickey would want to win the case one way or another. You get a lot of media attention if you won the case that had the Kennedy moniker.
- [47:14]
Andrew Goldman
So when it comes to Sherman's many mistakes, I flirted with sabotage, but then settled on ineptitude, folly, and hubris. Given all we've covered so far, you probably won't be shocked to learn that Sherman wasn't the responsible steward of his own funds or the fees clients paid him. Best I can estimate, by the time he made his Vegas speech in October 2001, the Skakels had paid over $2 million in legal fees for Michael's defense. Most of that went to Sherman, who'd later say he guessed he'd been paid between one and one and a half million dollars. It's pretty easy to see how Sherman had blown through a million five. Before the trial, Michael was living with his father in Hobe Sound, Florida, where Rush had moved. After selling the Belhaven house. Sherman would fly down, ostensibly to meet with his client. But Sherman didn't stay in Hobe Sound. Instead, Michael says, Sherman chose to bunk in the playground of the rich. Palm Beach, 40 minutes south of Rushton's condo.
- [48:13]
Michael Skakel
He stayed at the Breakers Hotel for five, six, seven weeks, had his Harley Davidson flown down Rushton.
- [48:22]
Andrew Goldman
Skakel was billed for the bike's Transport.
- [48:25]
Michael Skakel
It was just unbelievable.
- [48:27]
Andrew Goldman
Comfortably lodged at the swanky breakers, where the dinkiest suite will now run you about a couple grand a night, Sherman roared down Worth Avenue atop his Harley. From 1998 to 2000, the period leading up to and immediately following Michael's arrest, Sherman billed Rush Skakel Sr. For around 16 separate trips to Florida, most of those during the winter months. Under oath at an appeal hearing, Michael said he met with Sherman in Florida no more than five times. By the time the Skakels were shelling out for Mickey's work trips, they weren't as flush as they'd been in prior decades. Sherman was billing the monthly for his and his subcontractors hours and expenses. The bills were exorbitant. And to Stephen and his siblings, it seemed like shockingly little progress was being made. With their coffers running low, they eventually told Sherman he'd need to put a cap on his fees. Five months before Michael's trial started, Sherman wrote him a letter saying that he would no longer nickel and dime the family, sending them itemized bills for his hotel stays, or for that matter, bills from expert witnesses, jury consultants or subcontracted attorneys. He wrote, I will accept a lump sum of $450,000, which I believe is a fair sum. That might be one possible reason that Sherman decided to go it alone. Neither hiring expert witness Richard Offshore nor bringing along experienced co counsel like Linda Kenny Baden. He didn't want to share the dough. The less he spent on Michael's defense, the more he got to keep under oath Sherman would deny he skimped on necessary resources. Michael Skakel doesn't buy it.
- [50:03]
Michael Skakel
Witnesses weren't called because Mickey Sherman had spent the money. He spent the money on cars for his kids, trips.
- [50:13]
Andrew Goldman
Michael is not the only one on the record saying he thinks Sherman is a crook. The IRS officially concurs. In March of 2011, Sherman reported to Otisville Federal Prison to serve a year and a day for tax evasion. Notably the federal charges related to $420,000 in taxes he owed for 2001 and 2002, two years that the Skakels were paying him to prepare for and try Michael's case. But instead of paying off his taxes, much less hiring expert witnesses, with that conveniently sized $450,000 fee, Sherman found another way to spend his money. In the sentencing memo for his tax evasion case, the government lists some of Sherman's questionable expenditures. The timing of one of his purchases caught my attention. The very month the Skakels agreed to pay him $450,000. Sherman showed up at a Greenwich car dealership and paid $54,000 cash for two new Jeeps for his kids. When I shared what I'd found with Steven Skakel, he nearly put his fist through a wall.
- [51:17]
Michael Skakel
Instead of paying for professional witnesses, he was continuing to pay his ex wife's mortgage. He was paying country club dues out of the money that we paid him and not doing the work that we contracted him for.
- [51:35]
Andrew Goldman
As I mentioned, I was never able to speak to Sherman. Someone I spoke to told me they'd spotted Mickey bumbling around Greenwich in the decade before COVID looking frail. But shortly after his release from prison, he remarked to a reporter, how can an experienced criminal defense lawyer, who some might consider to be reasonably intelligent, have screwed myself up so bad? I ask the same question every night at about 4 in the morning. Mickey continued, I don't have an answer. Clearly, the Skakel family made a big mistake hiring Mickey Sherman. And can you believe I still haven't even mentioned the biggest mistake Sherman made defending Michael. I'm looking at Linda Kenney Baden's memo again. Another one of her notes reads theme of others who could have done it. That kind of defense has a name, she told me.
- [52:24]
Linda Kenny Baden
You can point to a third party, what's called the Saudi defense. Some other dude did it. Okay.
- [52:30]
Andrew Goldman
Sherman chose Ken Littleton and Ken Littleton alone for his Saudi defense. It proved a colossal mistake, not least because jurors were aware that the state had granted Littleton immunity, which signaled that the authorities were confident he had nothing to do with the murder. In the media room of her building, Kenny Baden and I discussed the variety of people who Sherman might have considered in addition to or instead of Littleton to use for his Saudi defense. And then we arrived at the most obvious one you can point to.
- [52:59]
Linda Kenny Baden
Tommy. Last one to see her.
- [53:01]
Andrew Goldman
For some reason, Sherman never added Tommy to the Saudi defense. Why, I wondered. I asked Stephen and Michael. They've both sworn to me repeatedly that the family never, ever made any kind of request to avoid the subject of Tommy and Michael's defense. This, they said, was entirely Mickey Sherman's call. I haven't found any evidence to contradict this claim, but why would Sherman make such a decision? I discovered a possible clue right there at the top of Kenny Baden's memo. The list of meeting attendees. The fourth is a familiar name. Manny Margolis. Tommy Skakel's attorney. Kenny Baden remembers that Margolis came to every meeting of Michael's original defense team. Some of the meetings even came to Him.
- [53:45]
Linda Kenny Baden
We did also have, I think, one of our first meetings at Manny Margolis office. And I was concerned about having a meeting. And I told Mickey this. In Manny Margolis office, when he represents Tom Skakel, no one from the family ever said, don't point to Tommy. But I don't know, having said that, what Mickey's relationship was with Manny Margolis.
- [54:07]
Andrew Goldman
I asked Steven Skakel about the family's process in hiring Michael's defense attorney. And do you have any recollection of how it came to be Mickey?
- [54:17]
Michael Skakel
Manny Margolis picked him.
- [54:20]
Andrew Goldman
But, I mean, was there a meeting where Manny said, I mean, you know.
- [54:25]
Michael Skakel
Dad tended to be hands off, that kind of stuff, and deferred to, you know, Manny?
- [54:32]
Andrew Goldman
So Manny said, oh, you should get Mickey.
- [54:34]
Michael Skakel
He's the one that brought him in. That's an absolute fact.
- [54:38]
Andrew Goldman
It is a fact. Margolis confirmed it himself on Dateline in 2003. Is it true that you brought Mickey Sherman to the family and recommended him as the defendant?
- [54:48]
Mickey Sherman
That is true.
- [54:49]
Andrew Goldman
Maybe you wouldn't need to be trained at Quantico to make the next logical leap, but personally, I wanted to hear from someone with G man Chris who knew all the players. I asked Sutton Associates, Jim Murphy. Do you have an opinion why, when Mickey Sherman was deciding how he was going to do his case, how he decided to use Ken Littleton as his culprit rather than Tom Skakel?
- [55:14]
Mickey Sherman
Yeah, I do.
- [55:15]
Michael Skakel
It was through a referral from Manny. Manny Margolis. And if you want to use your imagination or just some downright logic, maybe there's an agreement between these two attorneys.
- [55:31]
Andrew Goldman
I'm going to get you this job. You're going to make a lot of money on it.
- [55:35]
Michael Skakel
Don't call Tommy. Don't call my guy.
- [55:41]
Andrew Goldman
Naturally, this got me thinking. Maybe ineptitude, folly in hubris didn't fully explain Mickey's disastrous representation after all. Perhaps it had been some sort of gentleman's agreement. Nothing explicit, but something more implied and agreed upon with a wink. Margolis died in 2011, so I couldn't ask him about this directly, but Dateline tackled it with him in 2003. Do you have anything like an agreement with Mickey Sherman when you recommended him that. Look, here's an argument you're not going to make in court if it starts to go down on you that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Tommy Skakel.
- [56:13]
Mickey Sherman
Is your likely killer, not my client here. Never. Absolutely never.
- [56:17]
Andrew Goldman
Might have gotten his guy off. Might have clouded it enough to support Michael.
- [56:20]
Mickey Sherman
Never. Never. I would have never done that. I think Mickey was entitled to represent his client, to represent his client with the maximum vigor required and no agreement.
- [56:32]
Andrew Goldman
That Tommy's name is gonna stay out of this thing.
- [56:34]
Mickey Sherman
No such agreement whatsoever.
- [56:35]
Andrew Goldman
What kind of marks do you give Mickey Sherman, his defense lawyer here?
- [56:39]
Mickey Sherman
I'd really rather not say. Just having answered your questions as directly as I have, I think has to tell you it was a serious disappointment. I saw things that just amazed me, and I did everything I could to change them, but I couldn't.
- [56:54]
Andrew Goldman
In the wake of Michael's conviction, Mickey Sherman's antics might have remained just a bewildering footnote in the history of Michael Skakel's case. But in them, Michael's appellate team saw an opportunity. In 2013, having exhausted all of his appeals, Michael's legal team tried one last hail Mary to get him out of prison. They filed a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that by keeping Michael behind bars, the state of Connecticut was violating his sixth amendment constitutional right to effective legal counsel. Their thesis, Mickey Sherman's representation, had been so flawed that the case should be thrown out. Habeas petitions are rarely successful. Best numbers I can find say that only between 1 and 10% are granted. Traditionally, habeas appeals that do succeed are typically filed by indigent clients claiming ineffective assistance of counsel by their overworked public defenders, not defendants paying millions in legal fees to semi famous television lawyers. In fact, this was exactly the state's position on Michael's habeas appeal, which in a 2013 brief wrote the following. A full review of the record shows that the defense team's efforts far except exceeded the standards of most non capital defenses they spent years preparing. The defense challenged the state on legal issues large and small, consulted with experts, hired three sets of investigators, and assembled a full team of lawyers to assist in the defense, including some of Connecticut's most distinguished practitioners. Simply put, if the level of representation the petitioner received falls short of six amendment standards, no Connecticut conviction can be considered reliable testimony. In Michael's habeas corpus Appeal began on April 16, 2013, in Rockville Superior Court. This was the same courthouse where, two years later, I'd spend months pouring through thousands of pages of case files. The first witness ambled up into the witness box. Mickey Sherman. Michael, who by this point had been in prison for over a decade, looked on from his seat a few feet away. He hadn't set eyes on his former lawyer in years. Two seats to Michael's left sat Hubert J. Santos, the veteran Hartford defense and appellate attorney who died in 2021 right next to Michael Sat Santos, then 36 year old co counsel Jessica Walker. Walker, who in an earlier episode was dumbfounded by Rush Skakel Sr. S decision to commission the Sutton report, vividly recalled the day a few years before that Sealy showed up at the office with a huge find. The recording of Sherman's Vegas seminar.
- [59:28]
Jessica Walker
I listened to it, I was stunned. And then I sat with Hubie and I had him listen to it. And he was stunned for a number of reasons. First of all, this seminar was six months before Michael's trial. Six months before. I'm a murder trial of that magnitude. Your bottom should be on your seat in your office preparing for this case, not doing a seminar in Las Vegas. Secondly, you don't reveal confidential client communications with a seminar full of individuals. But the most egregious thing I think is that Mickey said that when he was preparing for a case like this, he likes to have a good time.
- [60:20]
Mickey Sherman
I'm only going to talk about this one case and having fun with it.
- [60:26]
Andrew Goldman
On the second day of his testimony, Sherman sat stone faced. As those words rang out in the courtroom, Judge Bishop listened carefully a few feet away. Bishop had been a judge in Connecticut for 19 years. 12 of those spent hearing appeals. Bad and corrupt lawyering was of personal interest to Bishop. While in private practice, he'd served as chairman of the New London County Bar Association Ethics Committee.
- [60:52]
Jessica Walker
I can tell you the look on Judge Bishop's face when those words were uttered and it really set the stage for what was about to unfold.
- [61:04]
Andrew Goldman
I got the impression that Walker has a pretty cool temperament. But her disgust for Sherman pushes it to its limit.
- [61:10]
Jessica Walker
If you're going to sign on to be a criminal defense attorney, then you have to make certain sacrifices because somebody else's freedom is in your hands. And if you don't do a good job, they're going to be in a cage for the rest of their lives. And that's not something I take lightly.
- [61:31]
Andrew Goldman
On October 23, 2013, Judge Bishop's decision came down and he finally got to express what he must have been thinking. Hearing Sherman's words six months before, his 136 page opinion was merciless, alluding to many of the issues we've discussed in this episode, including Sherman's failure to review important discovery, his handling of the audio tapes heard at trial, his failure to impeach confession witness Gregory Coleman, and much more specifically, Bishop's opinion stated that had Sherman done just two, made a case for Tommy Skakel being the culprit and presented a non family witness to corroborate Michael's alibi. The verdict would have been not guilty and there was a non family witness that fateful night at the Tarrian home. His name was Dennis Osorio and he was a one time boyfriend of Michael's cousin George Ann, Jimmy Tarrian's older sister. At the habeas proceeding, Osorio testified that he specifically remembered seeing and speaking with Michael Skakel at Sursum Corda as the gang watched Monty Python. He also testified that neither police nor Mickey Sherman had tracked him down in the aftermath of the murder. The testimony was short, but the impact on Michael's bid for freedom was enormous. In his decision, Judge Bishop wrote, defense counsel was in a myriad of ways ineffective. The defense of a serious felony prosecution requires attention to detail, an energetic investigation and a coherent plan of defense capably executed. Trial counsel's failure in each of these areas of representation were significant and ultimately fatal to a constitutionally adequate defense. As a consequence of trial counsel's failures as stated, the state procured a judgment of conviction that lacks reliability. The habeas petition is granted. Michael Skakel got a new trial because he was denied his sixth Amendment right to counsel. The way Judge Bishop saw it, Mickey Sherman's one and a half million dollar representation amounted to no representation at all. A stunning reversal of fortune for Kennedy.
- [63:45]
Vito Colucci
Cousin Michael Skakel, Ethel Kennedy's nephew, while.
- [63:48]
Andrew Goldman
Today he walked out of prison. A month after Judge Bishop's decision, Michael, now 53 years old and having spent 11 and a half years in a cage, was released on bail. Needless to say, the press was not pleased with Dominic Dunn, now four years dead and buried. Reporter Jeffrey Toobin channeled his dead friend's outrage at the decision, writing for the New Yorker that Skakel finally found a judge who bought his story and that there were really no other plausible suspects. Toobin's article resonated certainly with me. I read it when I first began work on Bobby Kennedy's book. Two years later in 2015, owing to Toobin's reputation as a journalist, I nearly backed off investigating the case. Toobin, as much as any other writer who covered the trial, convinced me that Michael was guilty, though that opinion would soon change. As I've mentioned before, the wheels of justice move very slowly and it would take a full five years of back and forth in the courts until in 2018, the Connecticut Supreme Court formally vacated Michael's conviction. This decision really seemed to set Toobin off, inspiring him to tweet. I covered the trial of Michael Skakel he was guilty as hell. The reversal of his conviction is a disgrace. My late pal Dominic Dunne weeps and rages from above on behalf of the Moxley family rich people. Justice Toobit isn't the only one who feels this way. It's a common sentiment echoed on forums and in the comments of any post mentioning Michael Skakel. There are cries to put him back in prison or worse. But officially, as of 2020, the case against Michael is well and truly finished. That year, the state of Connecticut announced that owing to the age of the case and that many witnesses were now dead, they would not pursue a retrial. In the eyes of the courts, at least, Michael was no longer a guilty man. But the media, and by extension the public, was not so easily convinced. For Michael, it was a bittersweet outcome.
- [66:02]
Michael Skakel
I would have rather had them say, vindicated. He didn't do it. Wasn't what I was expecting.
- [66:10]
Andrew Goldman
Michael had 4,103 days behind bars to think about who was most responsible for the fact that despite all the reasons we've already explored and those yet to come, he was prosecuted and convicted for the murder of Martha Moxley. He showed up to one of our interviews with a legal pad covered with writing. I caught sight of the heading on the first page. Culprits. It read, Mickey Sherman's name is on that list. Given what happened, no surprise there. And there were other names on that list, like Frank Garr, that I could have predicted. But there was another name on there, and it appeared multiple times. It's a name with a storied and at times, tragic history, a name deeply entwined with the fabric and legacy of American politics. A name that Michael is always tied to in papers, in news segments, and even in this podcast, Kennedy. Still to come, in the remaining episodes of Dead Certain, the Martha Moxley Murder.
- [67:12]
Michael Skakel
I'm not a Kennedy. I'm a Skakel through and through.
- [67:16]
Jessica Walker
My name is Amanda Knox. I'm most notoriously known for having been accused of my roommate's murder.
- [67:23]
Mickey Sherman
He knew his father would be very upset if he said that he had sex with Martha.
- [67:27]
Vito Colucci
Do you believe that they killed her? I think they were definitely involved.
- [67:33]
Andrew Goldman
What kind of blood was it?
- [67:34]
Michael Skakel
Was it drops of blood? Was it fresh blood? Was it shoe prints? He just said, well, then you're off the reservation. And I said, well, I was never on that reservation.
- [67:45]
Andrew Goldman
From NBC News studios and highly replaceable productions, Dead Certain the Martha Moxley Murder is written, reported, executive produced and hosted by me, Andrew Goldman. Alexa Danner is executive producer and head of audio at NBC News Studios. Megan Shields is our senior producer. Rob Heath is our producer. Nora Battelle is our story editor. Fact checking by Simone Buteau and Laura Hunkadea Production assistance by Brendan Wiesel Sound design by Rick Kwan, Mark Yoshizumi and Bob Mallory Original music by John Estes. Amanda Moore is our production manager and Marisa Riley is the director of production. Liz Cole is president of NBC News Studios. Thanks for listening. New episodes of Dead Certain the Martha Moxley Murder drop Tuesdays through January 20th.
- [68:42]
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