Supreme Court Won’t Hear Skakel Case, Prosecutors to Decide Whether to Retry Kennedy Cousin

In this Feb. 24, 2016, file photo, Michael Skakel leaves the state Supreme Court after his hearing in Hartford, Conn. The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision that vacated a murder conviction against Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel. The high court on Monday declined a request from the state of Connecticut to hear the case. AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File

The country’s highest court announced that it would not hear an appeal against Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, leaving state prosecutors with a choice of retrying the case or letting him remain free without a conviction.

Skakel, 43, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2002 for murdering Martha Moxley in 1975, who lived across the street from the Skakel family in Greenwich, Connecticut.