Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Kennedy Cousin/Killer Stays in Jail
Michael Skakel, 46, who beat young girl Martha Moxley to death with a golf club in 1975, was finally found out, convicted of murder in 2002 and sentenced to 20 years to life. He has been fighting the conviction ever since. His arguments so far have dealt with a 5 year statute of limitation which was repealed in 1976. Skakel is represented by former solicitor general (and 9/11 widower) Ted Olsen. His claims on a seperate appeal involve discovery disputes and other witnesses and something about a conflict of interest. Dead losers.The Connecticut Supreme Court already upheld Skakel's conviction. The United States Supreme Court just refused to issue a writ of certiorari (that is, refused to hear the case). All Skakel will soon have left to argue will be the last refuge of the guilty-- a claim that his attorney was ineffective. Yeah, that should work.
I had always worried that the evidence would fail to convince a jury that this rich kid did it and indeed the evidence is only OK. What firmly convinced me that he did it was how his life absolutely fell apart after the murder. It was a perfect 'eating Roskolnikov up with guilt' sort of decline.
The Skakels have more money than God; they consider the Kennedys nouveau riche. The idea they hired a bad lawyer is laughable. It's just good to see blind justice triumph now and again.
I had always worried that the evidence would fail to convince a jury that this rich kid did it and indeed the evidence is only OK. What firmly convinced me that he did it was how his life absolutely fell apart after the murder. It was a perfect 'eating Roskolnikov up with guilt' sort of decline.
The Skakels have more money than God; they consider the Kennedys nouveau riche. The idea they hired a bad lawyer is laughable. It's just good to see blind justice triumph now and again.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:09 PM 
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I've not much sympathy for Skakel, but I don't understand how a change to the law to extend the period of liability retroactively and after the commission of the crime is not ex post facto legislation. It should be, at least in principle, possible to know what laws one is violating and what the punishment is when one violates them.
(Note that I understand/believe that the SCOTUS has ruled that such changes are not violations of the constitution, but any interpretation that considers changes to the law after the fact to not be ex post facto legislation seems remarkably strained to me.
(Note that I understand/believe that the SCOTUS has ruled that such changes are not violations of the constitution, but any interpretation that considers changes to the law after the fact to not be ex post facto legislation seems remarkably strained to me.
An Ex Post Facto law here, to be precise would have been a law in 1976 that all killings in 1975 by anyone named Skakel would be considered justified homocide. Those are pretty darn rare. More prevalent in England before 1789. Then there is retroactive application of a new law. You'd think that any retroactive application would be wrong Changing the rules after the fact, but court's uphold them all the time. Only if you defeat and damage a right it was reasonable to think existed, or create a new duty that blindsides people, and for no real good purpose for society in general, can you get a court to say that retroactive application is not fair. Here, within the time the 5 years the statute was running the state legislature got rid of the statute of limitations. I'm OK with that change and then prosecuting any murder they discover and or get the evidence to prosecute whenever they get around to it. Skakel could not state, I killed her but I thought I could get away with it for 5 years so no fair changing the rules on me. It was stupid to have a statute of limitations on juvie murder in that state and they got rid of it. Had they done it in 1995, 20 years after the murder and 15 after the 5 year period expired, I think it would have been a different result. Thanks for the more pure view.
I can't speak to lawyerly perversions of the English language (8-), but for the rest of us, "ex post facto" means "retroactive". Specifically, from Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Ed., the earlier definition, attested from 1621, is "after the fact : retroactively". The later definition, from 1787 (hmmm), is "done, made, or formulated after the fact : retroactive", and it gives the example, "ex post facto laws".
Since the law was "formulated after the fact" of the crime, it is, at least in dialects other than "lawyer", by definition "ex post facto".
I believe the term I'm looking for is "result-oriented adjudication", or perhaps, "activist judiciary".
I agree that in a reasonable world, the law would have permitted this scumbag to be given the death penalty. But the State of Connecticut, in its decidedly finite wisdom, disagreed and wrote a different law. It is immoral (and by the plain language of the Constitution, unconstitutional) to change the rules with retroactive effect, just because you think the drafters of the original laws should have written them differently.
Since the law was "formulated after the fact" of the crime, it is, at least in dialects other than "lawyer", by definition "ex post facto".
I believe the term I'm looking for is "result-oriented adjudication", or perhaps, "activist judiciary".
I agree that in a reasonable world, the law would have permitted this scumbag to be given the death penalty. But the State of Connecticut, in its decidedly finite wisdom, disagreed and wrote a different law. It is immoral (and by the plain language of the Constitution, unconstitutional) to change the rules with retroactive effect, just because you think the drafters of the original laws should have written them differently.
I think I might have combined a Bill of Attainder into my example of an Ex Post Facto law, so you were right to look it up and correct me. I am giving you the straight poop on retroactive (versus retrospective) application of the law because I just argued that very issue in front of our Supreme Court. It is unfair to change the rules in the middle of the game but the legislatures do it regularly and sometimes without even saying we want to apply to pending cases as well as future cases. If the law was easy, anyone could do it.
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