Ruling would unseal Skakel case

HARTFORD — A federal judge has ruled that Connecticut officials cannot keep court proceedings and documents secret for teenagers charged with the most serious crimes — a decision that will reopen Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel’s murder case to the public.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shea in Hartford ruled Friday that a state law approved last year — with the intent of protecting juveniles’ identities when their cases are transferred to adult court and only unsealing documents if they are convicted — violates the First Amendment right of access to the courts, The Hartford Courant reported.

The decision came in a lawsuit challenging the law filed by the newspaper and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The judge ordered the state Judicial Branch to open courtrooms and unseal the records in the cases of juveniles ages 15, 16 and 17 whose cases were transferred to adult court but kept secret under the new law, which took effect Oct. 1. Parts of the order were postponed for a month to allow advocates for teenagers an opportunity to argue against unsealing the proceedings.

Under the previous law, serious juvenile cases were unsealed when they were transferred to adult court, as Skakel’s was, allowing public access to court proceedings. The new law resulted in the sealing of Skakel’s case, because he was a teenager when Martha Moxley was killed in their wealthy Greenwich neighborhood in 1975.