Free Republic

<p>THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.</p> <p>NANCY GRACE, GUEST HOST: Tonight, justice nearly 27 years after the crime. Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel gets 20 to life behind bars for the brutal murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley in 1975.</p>

NORWALK -- A judge yesterday rebuffed Michael Skakel's last-minute bid for a new trial, eliminating any chance the convicted murderer had to avoid a prison sentence and rejecting defense arguments that Skakel did not get a fair trial for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. In a packed courtroom filled with mostly familiar faces from the five-week trial this spring, Skakel's trial attorney, Michael Sherman, and his new appellate attorney, Hubert Santos, argued unsuccessfully that prosecutors withheld evidence and the judge erred when instructing the jury. Their client will be sentenced today by Superior Court Judge John Kavanewsky Jr. He...

Dorthy Moxley has spent a good part of this summer lingering over thoughts of hate.<!ENDSUMM!> ``I'm trying not to hate him. Hate is so destructive,'' she said as she prepares herself for Wednesday's sentencing of Michael Skakel, the Kennedy cousin convicted of murdering Dorthy's daughter, Martha. But despite her efforts in the months since the verdict to find a way to forgive Skakel, who at the time of the slaying was a motherless, child alcoholic with a smoldering temper, she wants to see him sentenced to life in prison. ``I had thoughts of leniency for Michael, but then I would...

<p>Once a child of privilege in the tony town of Greenwich, Conn., the pudgy killer of Martha Moxley now resides in the gloomy, 8-by-10-foot room (pictured at left) with a single bed, metal toilet and sink.</p> <p>A tiny window measuring only 4-inches across allows little sunlight in.</p>

Now that they have an ending (Guilty), filming begins in New Zealand next month on ``Murder in Greenwich,'' Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman's book about the murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley. Casting is not yet complete for the USA movie adaptation of the best-selling book, which Fuhrman will help produce. But we hear they are seeking a fortysomething actor ``lean and muscular with piercing eyes'' to play the O. J. Simpson-case detective. Oh, my. We can only assume they are seeking the opposite for the role of convicted murderer Michael Skakel.

It was dubbed the ``Kennedy Cousin'' trial but Kennedys were in short supply in the Connecticut courtroom where Michael Skakel yesterday was found guilty of killing 15-year-old Martha Moxley on Halloween Eve, 1975. Only Bobby Kennedy Jr., the son of Skakel's aunt, Ethel, and the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, put in an appearance during the five weeks of trial testimony despite assurances from Skakel's attorney, Michael ``Mickey'' Sherman that the clan would be on hand to show their support. ``They just didn't want anything to do with this,'' said a source familiar with the Kennedys' M.O. ``Maybe they saw...