Lawyers for Michael Skakel complained to Connecticut's highest court Monday that the Kennedy cousin should never have been tried for murder as an adult, and that he didn't receive a fair trial.

Skakel, 43, is serving life in prison for the Oct. 31, 1975, beating death of Martha Moxley in a gated neighborhood within affluent Greenwich. Last year, a jury concluded that Skakel was telling the truth when he told fellow residents of a Maine reform school that he was in an alcohol-induced haze when he beat Martha, 15, to death with a golf club.

Martha Moxley

Skakel's lawyers devoted a major portion of their 93-page brief to a statute of limitations issue. According to the defense, Connecticut's then-evolving statute of limitations for murder set a five-year limit on prosecutions.

Skakel was 39 years old when he was finally charged with killing Martha in January 2000. Prosecutors have argued in the past that Connecticut's legislature indicated in 1976, the year following Martha's murder, that it never intended to cap murder prosecutions at five years.

"This matter should be dismissed with prejudice because of the expiration of the statute of limitations and the erroneous transfer of the case from juvenile court. Alternatively, this matter should be remanded with an order for a new trial," Skakel's lawyers wrote.

Prosecutor Jonathan Benedict, who earned high praise from legal observers for delivering a closing argument that connected the dots for jurors, was out of the office Monday and could not be reached. Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano said he had not read the defense brief, and therefore could not immediately comment.

There is nothing new in the arguments made Monday that either the trial court or Supreme Court have not heard before. In fact, the Supreme Court listened to oral arguments about whether Skakel should be tried as a juvenile or as an adult in 2001 but decided that it was a post-conviction issue.

No date was set for filing a response by the state. It will be sometime next year before the state Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the points raised in the appeal.

Among other things, Skakel complains that Benedict improperly combined an audio tape of Skakel's voice with photos of a smiling Martha and crime scene images showing her lying face down under a tree on the grounds of her family's Belle Haven estate.

On the audio tape, which a writer made while interviewing Skakel for an ill-fated book proposal, Skakel talks about masturbating in a tree outside Martha's home on the night she was killed. He told police, however, that he was at his cousin's house that night and went to bed upon arriving home.

"I woke up to Mrs. Moxley saying, 'Michael, have you seen Martha?'" Skakel told the writer in 1997. "I'm like, 'What?' ... I was like, 'Oh my God, did they see me last night?'"

Benedict argued that Skakel was worried that someone saw him at the crime scene. The defense argues that prosecutors intentionally misrepresented the evidence, contending that Skakel was trying to explain to the writer that he was worried only that someone saw him masturbating.

The Supreme Court appeal is separate from a petition for a new trial that Skakel's lawyers have said they will file soon. That petition is expected to be based on allegations by Gitano "Tony" Bryant, a cousin of Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, in which he implicates two friends in Moxley's murder.

Hope Seeley, one of Skakel's appeals lawyers, told Courttv.com that the legal team feels all of the points it raised are valid and could, collectively or individually, aid their client. As for Skakel, Seeley said he hopes to one day be reunited with his young son, George.

"He's anxious, but his primary focus is, and always has been, his son," Seeley said.