Opinion ID: 2273504
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 22

Heading: The Petitioner's Alibi Defense

Text: I am persuaded that the Bryant evidence likely would result in an acquittal at a new trial not only because the evidence adduced by the state against the petitioner at his criminal trial was not strong, but also because of the strength of the petitioner's alibi. As I previously indicated, several witnesses, including the victim's close friend, Ix, testified that the petitioner, along with several others, left Belle Haven in a car at around 9:30 p.m. to go to the home of the petitioner's cousin, Terrien, twenty minutes away. Because the time of death was so firmly established, the success of the state's case rested on the state's ability to convince the jury that all of the alibi witnesses were lying. To this end, the state's attorney argued to the jury that the petitioner's alibi was a construct, invented by the petitioner's father, and practiced by its main proponents on a trip that they had taken to the family vacation house in Windham, New York, shortly after the victim's murder. The state's attorney also argued that the family likely used the trip as an opportunity to dispose of the evidence. The state's attorney argued to the jury: Let's stay with the alibi. Why is it so suspect. How was it produced. What did the Skakel family do . . . to put this together. Someone seeing the police all over the place decided, had the sense to get the players out of the area. The oldest brother [Rushton Skakel, Jr.] had already gone off to [Washington] D.C., so the first thing the next morning, Littleton was ordered to take the four players, [the petitioner], John [Skakel], [Tommy Skakel] and . . . Terrien, out of the way for awhile, for a short trip. . . . The importance of that sudden, brief, one night trip is that the alibi didn't begin to take shape until some time after the return from Windham. The state's attorney further asserted that the conspiracy was not limited to just the alibi witnesses but also included virtually the entire Skakel family. Thus, he asserted, in closing argument, for example, that Julie Skakel is the best example of a family support group continuing to this day to do whatever it takes to keep the wraps on [the petitioner]. With respect to David Skakel, the state's attorney stated: In tune with the alibi witnesses was younger brother David [Skakel]. Not really any useful information came from him, but I guess he felt a need to do his bit for the family. So he testified that, from a distance of 100 to 150 yards away on a cold night . . . over a hill and beyond the trees, [he] could tell which way [Ix' dog's] snout was pointing as he was barking. . . . Apart from the trip to Windham itself, however, and the fact that the petitioner's principal alibi witnesses were all related to him, the state presented no credible evidence to support its theory of a cover-up. As I previously indicated, evidence adduced at the petitioner's criminal trial established that all of the Skakel children who went to Windham were interviewed by police before they had departed for Windham, and the police were told at that time that the petitioner had gone to the house of his cousin, Terrien, on the night of the murder. Indeed, Tommy Skakel was interrogated for hours at police headquarters immediately following the discovery of the victim's body, the day before he went to Windham. In the petitioner's direct appeal to this court from his criminal conviction, he claimed that the state's attorney improperly had argued that the Skakel family had gone to Windham for the purpose of manufacturing an alibi. [113] State v. Skakel, supra, 276 Conn. at 752, 888 A.2d 985. We rejected that claim, stating that the evidence adduced at trial indicated that, on the day that the victim's body was discovered, several unidentified persons, whom Littleton described as `suits,' came to the Skakel residence to help take control of the situation. While they were there, it was decided that Littleton would take the [petitioner], his brothers [Tommy] Skakel and John Skakel [and] their cousin . . . Terrien to the family's hunting lodge in Windham. The defendant's father also testified that Littleton would not have had the authority to take his children anywhere without his permission. Accordingly, we conclude[d] that the state's [attorney's] argument that Littleton was directed to take the four boys out to Windham on the basis of `[s]omeone seeing the police all over the place' was not improper because it was founded on reasonable inferences drawn from the testimony of Littleton and the [petitioner's] father. Moreover, because the only family members to go to Windham were the chief proponents of the [petitioner's] alibithe [petitioner's] other siblings were left behindit also was proper for the state's attorney to argue that the trip had been arranged for the purpose of placing these crucial witnesses temporarily out of reach of the authorities in order to give them time to prepare a unified account of the events that occurred on the night of the [victim's] murder. Id., at 754-55, 888 A.2d 985. Although the state's attorney's argument concerning the allegedly concocted alibi was not so completely lacking in evidentiary support as to be improper, it is abundantly clear that his explanation concerning the manner in which the Skakel family allegedly manufactured the petitioner's alibi was extremely weak. The following evidence adduced at the petitioner's criminal trial demonstrates how factually attenuated the state's attorney's claim actually was. Littleton testified that, on the day the victim's body was discovered, he left the Skakels' house in the morning to go to Brunswick School, where he worked as a teacher and a coach. Upon returning to the house in the late afternoon, he encountered what he described to be a scene of mayhem. According to Littleton, police cars were all over the street, and several unidentified cars were parked in the Skakels' driveway. Littleton stated that, when he went inside the house, he was confronted by ten to fifteen men in suits in the living room, who directed him to take the Skakel children to Windham the next morning. On cross-examination, Littleton further stated that the men in suits, whom he believed to be attorneys from Rushton Skakel, Sr.'s, company, Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, were in a great hubbub, talking amongst themselves. Littleton acknowledged that, on previous occasions, he had told investigators that, when he arrived at the Skakels' house, he was swept into a vortex of twenty attorneys who were there to orchestrate a cover-up. When defense counsel asked Littleton whose idea it was to take the Skakel children to Windham, Littleton replied: When I walked into the living room to the . . . twenty suits, we ended up in a discussion. And in that discussion, we discussed the best ways to handle the situation. The testimony of the other witnesses who were at the Skakels' house on the afternoon in question indicates that Littleton's recollection of being swept into a vortex of attorneys bordered on delusional. [114] Lunney, the officer who interviewed the Skakel children, testified that there were no attorneys at the Skakels' house while he was there that afternoon or the following day. Julie Skakel testified that, after the victim's body was discovered, a woman in her neighborhood, who knew that her father, Rushton Skakel, Sr., was away and observed the police going in and out of the Skakels' house, advised her to call her father's office to inform them of what was going on. James McKenzie, the president of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, testified at the petitioner's criminal trial that, in 1975, he was an associate attorney at the company's New York City office. On the afternoon of October 31, 1975, at approximately 3 p.m., he was called into the office of the general counsel and told that there had been a murder of a neighbor next to . . . the Skakels and that the family was basically unsupervised as the father was out of town. McKenzie was asked if [he] would go up and stay with the family until the father arrived. McKenzie took a train to Greenwich and arrived at the house at approximately 5 p.m. McKenzie stated that the scene he encountered when he arrived was chaotic. According to McKenzie, there were a number of reporters, some neighbors, [children of] neighbors [and] police and kids running in and out of the house. . . . When asked what he did first, McKenzie responded: I asked the press to leave, number one, and tried to bring a little order to the family, asked the kids to be respectful of the situation, and I just tried to keep things a little more under control. In an attempt to bolster Littleton's testimony, the state's attorney asked McKenzie whether there were any male neighbors or anything of that nature at the house when he got there. McKenzie responded that there were mostly children and one woman from the neighborhood who was trying to maintain control of the situation as well. When asked whether any of the people were wearing suits, McKenzie responded, I guess a couple members of the press were and certainly the police, but [that was] about it. The state's attorney then asked McKenzie whether he and Littleton had discuss[ed] anything about [the] safety of the children, where the children should go. . . . McKenzie responded that he had no such conversation, although he did recall meeting Littleton, who told him that he was the tutor and that it was his first day on the job. On cross-examination, defense counsel asked McKenzie whether he had been sent to the Skakels' house to give legal advice to the family. McKenzie responded that he was not a criminal attorney and that his only purpose in going to the Skakels' residence was to try to . . . maintain a little order and wait for the father to return. McKenzie further stated that, by the time he arrived, the police already had interviewed the Skakel children. Defense counsel asked McKenzie, by the way, you didn't take the train with nineteen other Great Lakes Carbon lawyers, did you? McKenzie responded that he had not, that he was the only attorney at the house and that he had not given any legal advice to anyone the entire time he was there. According to McKenzie, Rushton Skakel, Sr., returned at approximately 9 p.m. that evening. At that time, McKenzie explained to Rushton Skakel, Sr., what he knew about the situation and then went home. It is clear that, at some point after Rushton Skakel, Sr., returned home, he decided that the older boys in the house would go to Windham the next day, a Saturday, and that Littleton would accompany them there. Apart from Littleton's highly dubious testimony, however, there is no evidence as to how or why the decision was made. Julie Skakel testified that, during that period, her brothers went to Windham almost every weekend in the fall and winter to hunt or ski. Indeed, Littleton himself testified that he had observed nothing unusual on the trip and that he never was asked by anyone in the Skakel family to participate in a cover-up. Certain Greenwich police officers testified that they were given unfettered access to the Skakel children, as well as their home and property, in the hours following the murder, and for several months thereafter, and that the family was fully cooperative. It may be, as the state argued at trial, that Rushton Skakel, Sr., sent his sons to Windham to get them away from police. It may also be that he sent them there simply to get them out of the house, for, as McKenzie stated, the murder had caused quite an uproar in the neighborhood, and some of the children, including the petitioner, were extremely shaken. I am fully persuaded, however, that the evidence of a cover-up was sufficiently weak, and the strength of the petitioner's alibi sufficiently strong, that, if a jury were to reconsider the alibi evidence in the context of credible evidence that one or more other persons had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the murder, that jury likely would find the petitioner not guilty of the victim's murder. Indeed, it bears emphasis that the state was required, at the petitioner's criminal trial, to disprove his alibi defense beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., State v. Butler, 207 Conn. 619, 631, 543 A.2d 270 (1988) ([a] defendant asserting an alibi and relying [on] it as a defense is entitled to have the jury charged that the evidence offered by him on that subject is to be considered by [the jury] in connection with all the rest of the evidence in ascertaining whether [the defendant] was present, and that if a reasonable doubt on that point exists, it is the jury's duty to acquit him). At the petitioner's criminal trial, the state undertook to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his alibi was constructed on a trip to Windham and orchestrated by the petitioner's father, that the several young witnesses who gave statements in support of the alibi immediately following the discovery of the victim's body all lied to the police about the petitioner's true whereabouts on the night of the murder, that those witnesses continued to lie about that fact for many years thereafter, and that they then perjured themselves as adults when they testified at the petitioner's criminal trial. Evidence to support this scenario, however, is essentially nonexistent. Indeed, it is striking that, despite the notoriety of the case and the relative youth of the petitioner's alibi witnesses at the time of the murder, all of those witnesses have been unwavering in their testimony, and not a single person ever has come forward with information to suggest that anyone of them ever has been untruthful.