Opinion ID: 6354475
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Thomas Skakel Evidence

Text: At the time of her death, the victim had been acquainted with Thomas Skakel and the petitioner for  approximately eight weeks. It is undisputed that Thomas Skakel was the last person to be seen with her prior to her death. Seven different witnesses reported seeing them alone in his driveway at approximately 9:30 p.m. In a tape-recorded interview following the murder, the victim's friend, Ix, reported that, on the night of the murder, at approximately 9:15 p.m., she, the victim, the petitioner and an eleven year old boy named Geoffrey Byrne were seated in the Skakels' Lincoln Continental in the Skakel driveway talking, when Thomas Skakel came outside and joined them. At that time, the petitioner's older brothers, John Skakel and Rushton Skakel, Jr., and their cousin, Terrien, approached the car and told them that they needed to use it to drive Terrien home. When asked by the police whether everyone got out of the car at that point, Ix responded: Not everyone. Just [Thomas Skakel], and me, and [the victim and Byrne]. Ix reported that she and Byrne then left for their respective homes, and, as they were leaving, the victim stated, I'm going home in a few minutes, too. Both Ix and Byrne reported that, as they were walking out of the driveway, they observed Thomas [Skakel] push [the victim], causing her to [trip] over a small steel curbing surrounding a planted area. Ix and Byrne reported that they did not see [the victim] return to the driveway after that. The victim's mother telephoned the Greenwich police at 3:48 a.m. on October 31, 1975, to report the victim missing. During that telephone call, she reported that the victim had been expected home at 9:30 p.m. and had never been late like this before. She also reported that she had called several of the victim's friends before calling the police and had been told by one to check with the ... Skakels .... The victim's mother reported that she then called the Skakel residence ... and spoke to Thomas [Skakel], who told  her that he last saw the victim at approximately 9:30 p.m. on  October 30, and that the victim had told him that she was going home to do her homework. At trial, the victim's mother testified that her daughter always came home when expected and that her failure to do so on the night of the murder was an aberration. The police interviewed Thomas Skakel following the discovery of the victim's body, and he told them that, on the night of the murder, at approximately 9:15 p.m., he went outside to his father's Lincoln Continental to get an audio cassette. When he got to the car, the petitioner, Ix, Byrne, and the victim were sitting inside the car, talking, and he decided to join them. After a few minutes, his brothers John Skakel, Rushton Skakel, Jr., and his cousin, Terrien, approached the car and told them that they were going to take Terrien home. Consistent with Ix' statement to the police, Thomas Skakel reported that he, Ix, Byrne, and the victim got out of the car and that John Skakel, Rushton Skakel, Jr., and Terrien got into the car with the petitioner and departed for Terrien's house. Thomas Skakel further stated that after he, Ix, Byrne, and the victim got out of the car, Ix and Byrne went home, leaving Thomas Skakel and the victim alone in the driveway. Thomas Skakel reported that he talked to [the victim] for a few minutes, said goodnight, and entered [his] house [through] the side door. Thomas Skakel's sister, Julie Skakel, reported to the police that she observed Thomas Skakel enter the side kitchen door at approximately 9:25 to 9:30 p.m., as she was leaving to take her friend Shakespeare home. According to Thomas Skakel, he then went to his bedroom to complete a homework assignment on Lincoln Log cabins. Thomas Skakel further stated that, at approximately 10:15 p.m., he went to his father's bedroom and watched television with Littleton for approximately fifteen minutes. When confronted with the fact that Ix and Byrne had seen him push the victim into the bushes, Thomas initially denied  that he had done so but then admitted to horse playing. When asked whether he kissed or attempted to kiss the victim, or had had any sexual desire for the victim, Thomas Skakel answered, no. Thomas Skakel became the prime suspect in the victim's murder after the police learned from his teachers that he had lied about his homework assignment, and learned from Littleton that Thomas Skakel was not in his bedroom at 10 p.m. In the course of their investigation, the police also learned from a number of witnesses that Thomas Skakel was an emotionally unstable teenager who was prone to frequent and quite sudden outbursts of severe physical violence, the apparent result of a traumatic head injury, which made him impulsive and [susceptible] to precipitous outbursts of anger. He would rant and rave, be extremely noisy, and, on one occasion, [he] put his fist through a door. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) On other occasions, he reportedly stabbed his brother in the head with a fork, ripped a telephone out of a wall, and beat the crap out of an opponent during a soccer game. Witnesses also informed the police that Thomas Skakel frequently walked around the neighborhood carrying a golf club 21 and that, shortly after the victim's murder, his father committed him to Yale-New Haven Hospital for two weeks of  psychiatric evaluation. Sherman also was aware that Thomas Skakel, by his own admission, had consumed about four or five beers and one or two scotches in the space of two or three hours on the night of the murder. Entries in the victim's diary further revealed that, in the weeks preceding her murder, Thomas Skakel had  made unwanted sexual advances toward her. In one such entry, dated October 4, 1975, the victim wrote that [Thomas Skakel] was being an ass. At the dance he kept putting his arms around me and making moves. Allison Moore, a friend of the victim's, corroborated the victim's account of Thomas Skakel's interest in the victim, reporting to the police that, just prior to [her death], [the victim] informed her that ... Thomas [Skakel] wanted to date her, but that [the victim] had refused. [Moore] reported that [the victim] told her that Thomas [Skakel] was aggressive, and that [the victim] thought [Thomas Skakel was] strange. Another friend, Christine Kalan, reported that she also was aware of the fact that Thomas [Skakel] wanted to date [the victim] but that [the victim] just liked [him] as a friend. The timeline of the murder established by the Greenwich police was also highly incriminating with respect to Thomas Skakel. The police believed that the victim was attacked on her way home from the Skakel driveway sometime between 9:30 and 10 p.m., a conclusion based on forensic analysis of the victim's body, 22 the extreme agitation of two neighborhood dogs at the edge of the crime scene, 23 and a loud commotion heard by  the victim's mother between 9:30 and 10 p.m. in the victim's yard. The commotion, which consisted of excited voices and incessant barking, was so distracting that the victim's mother stopped what she was doing to look out the window. On the basis of this and other information, the police concluded: Our assumption is that death occurred about 10 p.m., October [30], as the investigation shows that two neighborhood dogs were highly agitated shortly before 10 p.m. We feel that, even though there was no school the next day, the [victim] left the Skakel  house and was headed home because her friends were not going to remain out any longer that night. We have interviewed [400] people, and no one saw the [victim] after 9:30 p.m. on the night in question. It seems highly unlikely ... that a ... fifteen year old female would [wander the neighborhood alone] at night. In 1994, after Rushton Skakel, Sr., hired Sutton Associates to investigate the victim's murder; see footnote 6 of this opinion; Thomas Skakel admitted to the Sutton investigators that he had lied to the police in 1975. Although he had originally told the police that he last saw the victim in his driveway at 9:30 p.m., Thomas Skakel now confessed that, after his brothers left to take Terrien home, he went inside the house briefly and then rejoined the victim for a sexual encounter in his backyard that lasted until 9:50 or 9:55 p.m., during which he ejaculated. When first interviewed by the investigators, Thomas Skakel stated that the victim initially  rejected his advances but then acquiesced. In a follow-up interview, however, he portrayed the victim as the aggressor, stating that it was the victim who pursued him because maybe she wanted more of Tommy. Of course, Thomas Skakel's admissions to the Sutton investigators, later repeated to Sherman and Throne, placed him with the victim after the neighborhood dog began its frantic and violent barking a few feet from the crime scene. See footnote 23 of this opinion. Although State's Attorney Benedict, at trial, tried to minimize the import of the dog's behavior relative to the timing of the victim's murder, its significance was not lost on the Greenwich police or on any of the forensic investigators who advised them in their investigation; all of them believed that the dog's aberrant behavior corresponded with the time of the attack. Sherman also considered it a crucial piece of evidence because he argued to the jury that the dog's violent barking at 9:45 p.m. time stamps when this crime occurred. According to the defense's own theory of how the crime unfolded, therefore, Thomas Skakel's admissions to the Sutton investigators placed him with the victim at the time of the attack. In the course of their investigation, Sutton investigators interviewed Thomas Skakel's sister, Julie Skakel, whose account of the evening further cast doubt on Thomas Skakel's innocence. She reported that, on the night of the murder, at approximately 1:30 a.m., she received the first of several telephone calls from the victim's mother, who was trying to locate the victim. According to Julie Skakel, she went to Thomas Skakel's room to ask him if he knew where the victim might be so that she could report back to the victim's mother. Julie Skakel stated that Thomas Skakel told her that the victim had left at 9:30 p.m. and that he had to study for a test that night. In their suspect profile of Thomas  Skakel, the Sutton investigators noted that, while there may have been an innocuous reason for Thomas Skakel to lie to the police about his sexual encounter with the victim after learning of her murder, that motive would originate after Thomas [Skakel] knew [the victim] had been murdered.... When Julie [Skakel] came into his room at 1:30 a.m., however, Thomas [Skakel] was untruthful about [having a] test and when he had last seen [the victim].... Many divergent and damning conclusions can be drawn when speculating about the significance of [these lies], which were told at a time when presumably only the killer knew that the victim was dead. Thomas Skakel also lied to the victim's mother when he spoke to her in the early morning hours of October 31, 1975. As I previously indicated, Thomas Skakel told her that the victim had left  his house at 9:30 p.m., stating that she was going home to do homework. Sherman also had firsthand knowledge of Thomas Skakel's admissions because he and Throne met with Thomas Skakel and his attorney, Emanuel Margolis, on the eve of the petitioner's criminal trial. At that time, according to Sherman's habeas trial testimony, Margolis allowed [Sherman and Thorne] to speak to [Thomas Skakel] about anything [they] wanted .... Both Sherman and Throne testified at the habeas trial that they had read the Sutton Report prior to their meeting with Thomas Skakel and were aware of the information contained in it relative to him. Sherman specifically acknowledged that he was aware that, [o]n October 7, 1994, Thomas [Skakel] broke down in tears and informed [the] Sutton [i]nvestigators that he had, in fact, spent at least an additional twenty minutes with [the victim] behind his house.... They began an extended ... twenty [minute] kissing and fondling session, which include[d] mutual fondling ... and ... concluded when both masturbate[d] [the other] to orgasm. At [that] point, approximately 9:50 p.m., both  [the victim] and [Thomas Skakel] rearranged their clothes, and [the victim] ... is last seen by [Thomas Skakel] hurrying across the rear lawn [toward] her home. [Thomas Skakel] stated that ... he opened [the victim's] pants, slightly pushing them down, [and] fondled her vagina .... Thomas [Skakel] ... stated [that] he soiled his clothing ... when [the victim] brought him to ... orgasm using her hand on his penis. Sherman testified that [Thomas Skakel's] discussion with [him] was consistent with what was in the Sutton Report.... He repeated the version of events as you recited [from] the Sutton Report. Sherman stated, moreover, that he and Throne took notes during the meeting. Throne also testified at the petitioner's habeas trial about his and Sherman's 2002 meeting with Thomas Skakel. Although he could not remember the specifics of what was said at the meeting, he did recall that it made a significant impression on him because Thomas Skakel admitted to having lied to the police about when he last saw the victim. In particular, Throne remembered that Thomas Skakel told them that he and the victim were together after the time that the police believed that they had parted ways. At the habeas trial, the petitioner's habeas counsel asked Sherman why, in light of the litany of evidence implicating Thomas Skakel in the victim's murder, he did not pursue a third-party culpability claim against him, particularly given the defense's theory that the victim was attacked at 9:45 p.m. Sherman responded that Thomas Skakel was going to invoke the fifth amendment [privilege] no matter what we did, and I [did not think] ethically I could put him on the stand knowing that he was going to invoke the fifth amendment privilege. Sherman further testified: I told [Thomas Skakel's attorney], I'm calling him as a witness. [Thomas Skakel's attorney] told me in no uncertain  terms that he's not going to testify because he will claim the fifth amendment privilege. Specifically, Sherman stated: I'm sorry. [I was] not the one trying ... to protect [Thomas] Skakel, but he would not testify, and I don't think the third-party culpability issue would have worked [otherwise]. Although Sherman acknowledged that he did not believe in putting out a buffet table of alleged suspects, he emphasized that his [p]rime reason for not implicating Thomas Skakel was that he did not think it would have been successful without Thomas Skakel's testimony. Sherman explained: My client was [the petitioner]. I bore no allegiance; I bear no allegiance to anyone but [the petitioner]. If I had ...  something that I deemed was credible enough to pass [the court's] third-party culpability threshold, I would have used it.... I don't think we reached that threshold [with Thomas Skakel]. I don't think it was there. I wish it was. But it was there. As the habeas court concluded, Thomas Skakel's statements against penal interest could have been presented to the jury through Throne, who readily could have been called to testify about them. 24 Of course, it would have been preferable for Sherman to have had a nonattorney witness present when interviewing Thomas Skakel because Throne could not participate in the trial both as counsel and as a witness. In this case, however, Throne undoubtedly was more valuable to the petitioner as a witness than as Sherman's inexperienced third chair at trial. 25 If necessary, Sherman also could have called Margolis to testify,  since Thomas Skakel's admissions in the presence of third parties would not have been protected by the attorney-client privilege. See, e.g., State v. Cascone , 195 Conn. 183 , 186, 487 A.2d 186 (1985) (Communications between client and attorney are privileged when made in confidence for the purpose of seeking legal advice.... By contrast, statements made in the presence of a third party are usually not privileged because there is then no reasonable expectation of confidentiality. [Citations omitted.] ); see also Ullmann v. State , 230 Conn. 698 , 713, 647 A.2d 324 (1994) (attorney-client privilege protects only those disclosures-necessary to obtain informed legal advice-which might not have been made absent the privilege [emphasis omitted; internal quotation marks omitted] ); Ullmann v. State , supra, at 710, 647 A.2d 324 (attorney-client privilege is strictly construed because it tends to prevent a full disclosure of the truth in court [internal quotation marks omitted] ). It is apparent, therefore, that Sherman could have put Thomas Skakel's highly incriminating admissions before the jury, either through Throne or Margolis, and that he wanted to do so as a key component of a third-party culpability defense built around Thomas Skakel. But he was unaware that the law permitted him to do so; he thought that the only way that he could make the jury aware of those admissions was through Thomas Skakel's direct testimony. It is well established that the influence of a mistake of law on an attorney's decision making cannot be characterized as a matter of trial strategy under Strickland . See, e.g., Hinton v. Alabama , --- U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1081 , 1089, 188 L.Ed.2d 1 (2014) ([a]n attorney's ignorance of a point of law that is fundamental to his case combined with his failure to perform basic research on that point is a quintessential example of unreasonable performance under Strickland ); Williams v. Taylor , 529 U.S. 362 , 373, 120 S.Ct. 1495 , 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000) (petitioner was denied  right to effective assistance of counsel when defense counsel failed to investigate and present substantial, mitigating evidence during sentencing phase of capital murder trial, not for any tactical reason, but because he erroneously believed that law did not permit him to present such evidence). Thus, insofar as Sherman's decision not to present a third-  party culpability defense centered on Thomas Skakel resulted from Sherman's mistaken belief that that defense required Thomas Skakel's testimony, the decision was not reasonable under Strickland . The importance of Thomas Skakel's admissions to the defense was great. The great weight of the trial evidence established that the victim was attacked at approximately 9:45 p.m. Unlike Thomas Skakel, who could not account for his whereabouts between 9:30 and 10:20 p.m., the petitioner had a strong alibi for that time frame, which is why the state took the bold position that the petitioner's alibi witnesses were all lying to protect him. If the defense had offered the jury a plausible third-party culpability suspect, however, the jury would have viewed the state's speculative argument concerning the petitioner's alibi in a far different light. As the habeas court noted: [Sherman's] task ... would not have been to convince the jury that [Thomas] Skakel committed the murder; rather, he needed only to argue that the direct and circumstantial evidence regarding [Thomas] Skakel's potential culpability should, at least, create a reasonable doubt in the minds of the [jurors] as to the petitioner's guilt. As presented, [Sherman's] defense deprived the petitioner of an opportunity for the jury to hear [Thomas] Skakel's admission of a sexual encounter with the victim, and for ... Sherman to point out the compatibility of some aspects of this story with the physical crime scene findings regarding the victim's [state of undress].... Sherman deprived the petitioner of an opportunity to  present [Thomas] Skakel's consciousness of guilt [in his] change of stories, his growing sexual interest in and aggressiveness toward the victim leading to the date of her murder, and the police awareness that he had a history of emotional instability. The habeas court further noted: At trial, the jury heard only that when the Lincoln [Continental] left the Skakel property, [Thomas] Skakel and the victim were standing together in the driveway. Significantly, the jury heard nothing regarding a sexual encounter between [Thomas] Skakel and the victim. However, it is reasonable to conclude that, in a competently presented third-party culpability claim regarding [Thomas] Skakel, a jury would have heard testimony that [Thomas] Skakel claimed that he had been engaged with the victim in a consensual sexual encounter to the rear of the Skakel property [until 9:50 p.m.] on October 30, 1975, during which he unfastened her [pants] and partially lowered [them] while [they both] engaged in mutual masturbation; that no living person could account for [Thomas] Skakel's whereabouts between 9:15 p.m. and approximately 10:17 p.m., when [Thomas Skakel] joined Littleton to watch [television]; that [Thomas] Skakel initially had lied to the Greenwich police about his whereabouts and activities after approximately 9:15 p.m. that evening; and [that] he had lied to [the police and] Littleton about having worked on a homework assignment in his father's room. The jury would also have heard that no one ever reported seeing the victim alive after she and [Thomas] Skakel were seen together in the Skakel driveway as the Lincoln [Continental] left for the Terrien home at approximately 9:15 p.m. Based on the availability of this evidence to ... Sherman, [there is] little doubt that the trial court would have permitted the petitioner to assert a third-party culpability claim regarding [Thomas] Skakel. (Footnote omitted.)  Indeed, on the basis of the evidence known to Sherman at the time of the petitioner's criminal trial, Sherman could have argued persuasively to the jury as follows.  Finding herself alone with Thomas Skakel in the driveway at 9:25 p.m., the victim told him that she had to leave, too, because she was due home at 9:30 p.m. Thomas Skakel then offered to walk the victim home and asked her to wait while he grabbed a jacket, or used the bathroom, since he had been drinking heavily. Such a scenario was consistent with Julie Skakel's testimony that she saw Thomas Skakel enter the house through the side door at 9:30 p.m. Thomas Skakel then rejoined the victim outside, grabbing a golf club from the bucket by the door as he left the house, as was his custom according to various witnesses. While en route to the victim's house, an intoxicated Thomas Skakel made a pass at the victim, and what may or may not have been initiated as a consensual sexual encounter between them turned suddenly violent when the victim rejected his advances or withdrew her consent for further physical contact. Infuriated by her rejection, Thomas Skakel struck the victim with the golf club, which, in his rage, became a weapon of convenience. Consistent with the forensic evidence, the victim was able to get away from Thomas Skakel after the initial assault, but Thomas Skakel caught up with her, struck her repeatedly with the golf club and then dragged her lifeless body to the pine tree behind her house. Thomas Skakel's assault on the victim was undoubtedly the commotion that the victim's mother heard between 9:30 and 10 p.m., and the event that caused one of the neighborhood dogs to commence its incessant and plaintive barking at the entrance to the victim's driveway. Thomas Skakel then ran home, which would have taken him less than one minute according to the evidence adduced at trial, removed his bloodstained clothing and, thirty minutes later, joined Littleton to watch television with him, in an effort to establish an alibi.  Testimony by Thomas Skakel's family, friends and teachers regarding his violent temper would only have strengthened Sherman's argument, as would the victim's diary and the testimony of her friends regarding Thomas Skakel's aggressiveness toward her before her death. To reinforce his argument, Sherman needed only to remind the jury that Thomas Skakel, by his own admission, had placed himself with the victim after the neighborhood dog began its violent barking at 9:45 p.m., that he was hospitalized for two weeks shortly after the murder for psychiatric evaluation, that he had lied about his whereabouts between the hours of 9:30 and 10:20 p.m. not only to the police, but also to his sister and the victim's mother before anyone knew that the victim was dead. Sherman could have argued that Thomas Skakel's guilt was consistent not only with the forensic evidence but with the victim's last words to Ix at 9:25 p.m., that she was going home soon, and with the victim's mother's statement to the police that the victim had been due home at 9:30 p.m. Finally, and perhaps most important, Sherman could have argued to the jury that this scenario required no more speculation-indeed, I would argue that it required considerably less speculation-than the state's argument with respect to the petitioner, namely, that all of his alibi witnesses were lying and that the petitioner must have jumped out of the Lincoln Continental after it left the driveway, found a golf club lying about in the dark, waited for the victim near her house, and then bludgeoned her as she entered the driveway, all because he had seen her carrying on with Thomas Skakel, as Benedict characterized Thomas Skakel's conduct. In short, in stark contrast to Sherman's claim that Littleton may have murdered the victim-a claim for which there was absolutely no support in the evidence-the evidence against Thomas Skakel provided an  opportunity for Sherman to present a coherent and  compelling third-party culpability defense-a defense that he, for no legally or strategically valid reason, failed to employ. 26