Response to Skakel appeal sought
on Aug 9, 2006 at 3:17 pm
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked state prosecutors in Connecticut to file a response to an appeal by Michael Skakel in a high-profile murder case in that state. The state on July 21 waived its right to answer the appeal, but it is now expected to do so because the Court’s “request” is understood to be more than a simple invitation. The appeal attracts continuing media attention because Skakel is a cousin of the Kennedy family, and the crime occurred in a fashionable Greenwich neighborhood.
This new development does not necessarily mean that the Court will grant review of the case, since only any Justice has the option of asking for a response and it would take the votes of four to grant. But the order does suggest some interest in the issue the case raises; without a request for a response, the case would have been simply denied without consideration. The appeal involves a claimed violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause when the state supreme court permitted prosecution of a crime on which the charging deadline arguably had passed years before.
An earlier post on the case can be found here, and the petition for review in Skakel v. Connecticut (06-52) is here.
The response is due by Sept. 7, so it is unclear whether the case will be ready for the Court to consider at its Conference on Sept. 25. The case had been scheduled for that Conference, but that was before the request for a response, according to the Court’s electronic docket.
