An attorney for Erik and Lyle Menendez blasted the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s decision to withdraw a recommendation to reduce their prison terms, calling it a “grandstanding” move that only “re-traumatizes” the family.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman reversed course from his predecessor on Monday by withdrawing a resentencing recommendation for the brothers, who are serving life without parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Hochman said he’ll only reconsider if the brothers apologize for what he calls a litany of lies.
“If they go ahead and sincerely and unequivocally for the first time in 30 years lay out that they have now lied on their entire defense, and finally admit that they killed their parents in cold blood, then that will be a new insight that the court should then consider,” Hochman told NBC News’ Liz Kreutz.
The DA’s decision to withdraw featured a list of 16 “unacknowledged lies” by the brothers including that they “lied when they claimed their parents were going to kill them, and they had to act in self-defense,” according to the filing.
Mark Geragos, an attorney for the brothers, said he had prepared the brothers for this decision, noting “this DA had made up his mind.”
“There were 22 family members who signed on and told the DA’s office, stop re-traumatizing us. We could tell at that meeting that he had no interest in that,” Geragos said in an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” show Tuesday morning.
“There isn’t a single living victim who endorses this … He’s almost serially abusing them with his lies,” he said.
Family members who support the brothers lambasted the DA in a statement Monday saying he has “blinders on to the fact that Erik and Lyle were repeatedly abused, feared for their lives and have atoned for their actions.”
When asked about the 16 lies the DA is asking the brothers to admit to, Geragos said: “He’s obviously showboating.”
“He knows for a fact both brothers were cross-examined for weeks in the first trial on all these things. Every single one of those things that he mentioned was either abandoned or cross-examined on in the first trial. And guess what happened? Two juries, not one — one for Eric, one for Lyle — both juries voted against murder over the majority,” Geragos said.
The brothers were prosecuted twice for murder in the 1990s in connection with the deaths of their parents at the family’s Beverly Hills home on Aug. 20, 1989.
A judge declared a mistrial in the first trial when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. They were convicted of first-degree murder at their second trial.
Geragos countered Hochman’s take that the brothers claimed self-defense.
“They were not claiming self defense. They were claiming what was called imperfect self defense,” which jurors heard and “they rejected it.”
“All this was, was basically a rehash of the opening statement from 30 years ago by Pam Bozanich,” he added.
The first jury for both trials was hung, and then the judge took away imperfect self defense, essentially “directing a verdict the second time around,” Geragos said on the brothers’ past trials. “All the evidence that was presented in the first trial was truncated and not presented in the second trial.”
While the DA’s recommendation of resentencing is withdrawn, it’ll ultimately be up to a judge to decide at a resentencing hearing set for March 20 and 21 in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Resentencing is just one of three paths the brothers are taking to get out of prison.
When asked if clemency by the governor’s office is the brothers’ best bet at release, Geragos said he doesn’t believe so.
“We’ve got a habeas that’s still alive. We’ve got a resentencing which is still scheduled for the 20th and 21st and we have the clemency,” he said.
On the clemency front, Gov. Gavin Newsom last month requested the parole board assess what risk the brothers would pose if they are indeed released.
Source link
