Plan B Forum

Looks to me like Trump may have a new running mate. Of course, he was also a big defender of Michael Skakel, so this doesn't really surprise me.

I don’t think RFK Jr.’s defense of his cousin Michael Skakel is evidence of poor judgment. I wonder how much you know of the true details of the case, if you would assert that it is. There was a mountain of reasonable doubt in that case and at least two other very viable suspects. Skakel’s alleged confession to the crime was very questionable especially given the context in which it was purportedly elicited/offered. The state of Connecticut certainly didn’t believe they could meet their legal burden at a retrial so dropped the case entirely - an appropriate decision given the weakness of the evidence used to convict him in the first place. It is very likely that Michael Skakel served eleven and a half years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and his reputation and name are forever impugned because it is now impossible for him to be truly exonerated unless the guilty party someday chooses to confess the crime. If anything, as a former defense attorney and prosecutor, I credit RFK Jr.’s passionate defense of his likely innocent cousin as one of the finest acts of his life.

https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exone ... aseid=5860

I wholeheartedly agree that RFK Jr. has since gone off the rails in jumping on the antivaxxer bandwagon and using the considerable clout of his family name and earlier reputation as a passionate and effective advocate for the environment to spread disinformation about vaccines and scaremongering to raise funds for what seems to be his own enrichment. I posted a long piece on this some weeks ago and encourage people to read it if they haven’t already and are interested in the nitty gritty details of what he’s lately been up to. It appears that the majority if not the entirety of the Kennedy clan are also mortified by what he has morphed into. In that respect the Kennedy clan continues to reflect all the range of experience of the American people.

Well BSG, the Skakel case is fodder for another thread, but you are not alone in your belief of his innocence. From what I have seen, I don't agree (and think his defense at trial was pretty ludicrous), and RFK Jr was defending him long before many of the facts came out--I don't think the defense was as likely rooted in a true belief as just wanted to be mentioned in the news (FWIW, I think this antivax position may be much of the same thing). I'm sure it is hard to live up to the legend of a famous father and uncle who weren't around long enough for their faults to be trumpeted, and he is just trying to make a part in his own right, but he has picked some bad positions to stake his reputation on (and this antivaxxer is the worst worst).

Here’s that link I posted a little while back, if anyone is interested. It’s a little longer read than most online articles these days but worth the attention I think.

https://www.boston.com/news/politics/20 ... aturestack

Big RR wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 24, 2022 4:58 pm

Well BSG, the Skakel case is fodder for another thread, but you are not alone in your belief of his innocence. From what I have seen, I don't agree (and think his defense at trial was pretty ludicrous), and RFK Jr was defending him long before many of the facts came out--I don't think the defense was as likely rooted in a true belief as just wanted to be mentioned in the news (FWIW, I think this antivax position may be much of the same thing). I'm sure it is hard to live up to the legend of a famous father and uncle who weren't around long enough for their faults to be trumpeted, and he is just trying to make a part in his own right, but he has picked some bad positions to stake his reputation on (and this antivaxxer is the worst worst).

I can’t say I agree with your assessment. The ‘facts’ were what they were within hours/days/weeks of Martha’s horrific murder. The cops and prosecutors back in the day dropped the ball entirely in the investigation, tip toeing as they too often do around the feelings and demands of wealthy people. The hellbent determination to persecute Michael decades later was borderline prosecutorial misconduct given the weight (or unbearable lightness) of the evidence. Since the office dropped the case entirely after the court of appeals overturned the conviction on grounds of ineffective counsel (a claim I wholeheartedly agree with), it seems to me when the evidence hasn’t changed one bit and you decide again that you don’t have a case, then your erred in going forward in the first place and the original conviction is therefore a miscarriage of justice and a perversion of the system that only tends to increase the citizenry’s lack of faith in it.

Somebody horrifically murdered Martha Moxley, of that there is no doubt. It could have been Thomas Skakel, the last person seen with her alive. It could have been Kenneth Littleton the tutor who was not in his room and whose whereabouts remain unaccounted for at the time of the murder. It could have been Michael Skakel, who had at least a partial alibi for the time frame of the murder. I’m sure it was one of those men, but absent a true confession from any of them I would never vote to convict any of them because there is a mountain of reasonable doubt.

Life is very fucked up and messy and some crimes don’t get solved. The law is not about justice as all lawyers soon learn or otherwise are delusional. The prosecutor has a moral duty far above seeking convictions and the most broken thing in our system is how many prosecutors fail to meet this moral duty and instead lust for power and pursue personal ambition at the cost of other people’s lives - not just those wrongfully prosecuted or convicted but also all the families and loved ones of victims who are led astray and disrespected by lawyers playing lawyer games.

Well, Skakel aside, this latest anti-vax position seems indefensible. Either the man is insane, or he just wants to be in the news for whatever reason--I'm leaning toward the latter, but either is possible; he's clearly smarter than this. Of course, Trump was a rich man's son as well, so maybe it isn't all that surprising....

A type of Godwin's law.