How Did Kennedy Relative Clear High Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Bar?

The Wall Street Journal has a story on the granting of a retrial to Bobby Kennedy's nephew Michael Skakel, who was convicted of first degree murder in 2002 of the 1975 killing of his 15-year old neighbor, Martha Moxley. The basis for the new trial was ineffective assistance of counsel. The thrust of the WSJ story is how difficult it is under the Strickland standard to make a persuasive case that bad lawyering justifies a new trial; failings such as not following up leads, neglecting evidence, being drunk in court, and falling asleep have all been deemed insufficiently "ineffective" to warrant a new trial. Skakel was granted a new trial by claiming that his lawyer failed to call an alibi witness or argue that Skakel's brother could have murdered Moxley. Legal experts contacted for the story agreed that the granting of the new trial was unusual. George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley told the Wall Street Journal that "anything but a sucking chest wound of an error tends not to be a viable claim."  Maybe so, but Legal Ethics Forum says that the order granting the retrial is a "136 page primer on what not to do as an advocate." Then again, Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker says that the jury got it right, and the judge granting the new trial got it wrong.