The Menendez brothers’ Los Angeles County prosecutors and lawyers heard a sometimes uncomfortable court on Friday amidst tension. Atty. Nathan Hochman is about to spike his advance recommendation that his siblings will be sentenced to mild sentences for the horrifying murder of his parents.
The ultimate fate of Eric and Lyle Menendez will not be decided until at least next week, but Hochman sent prosecutors on Friday to ask Superior Court Judge Michael Jessick to ignore requests filed by then-distinguished dyst last year. Atty. George Gascon wants his brothers to give him a chance of freedom in prison for more than 30 years.
Last October, Gascon tried to res on his brother to 50 years in prison. The move could have given her parole qualifier as a young offender, as she committed murder when she was under the age of 26.
Last month, Hochman formally announced his opposition to their release, saying he would withdraw the Gascon petition and ask the judge to simply consider his application to be official position in the district attorney’s office.
Legal experts say there is little precedent for Hochman to try to hold back Gascon’s movements, but he has all the rights to add his position to the record. A hearing to decide whether to resume the siblings is scheduled for April 17th.
Deputy Director on Friday. Atty. Habib Varian told the judge that Gascon simply did not “get” the case and conducted a burning analysis of half the willingness to accept the brothers’ past trials and murder.
Both Hochman and Balian allege that their brothers are still lying about the circumstances of their crimes, and Balian said Friday that neither Gascon nor the prosecutor who filed his three-page recertification petition had obtained a case file from the archive before making a decision. Varian also reiterated Hochman’s claim that Gascon had pursued Hochman with about 30 points on the vote, but even though even some of his closest advisors had admitted that the race was lost, Gascon filed a lawsuit for political gain.
Eric and Lyle Menendez, who were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the horrifying 1989 shotgun murder of wealthy parents, saw support for the surge in their releases following the release of the popular Netflix documentary last year and the discovery of potential new evidence of their fathers Jose, Jose and sexual abuse.
In a petition seeking a new trial, the brothers’ lawyers cited fresh sexual abuse allegations against Jose Menendez as important evidence in their claims of self-defense.
Varian on Friday repeatedly insisted that the brothers repeatedly guided witnesses at previous trials and lied about the threats they faced from their parents to strengthen their self-defense debate. As he spoke, Hochmann saw from the gallery.
Last month, Hochman filed an 88-page motion opposed to the brothers’ re-recognition, claiming that they were not fully responsible for the murder as they still lied about their motives for the crime.
“The Menendez brothers have been lying about self-defense for over 30 years, claiming the actual fear that their mother and father were trying to kill them on the night of their murder,” the movement read. “And over the last 30 years, they have not been able to accept responsibility for the vast number of lies they have spoken about in connection with their defense.”
On the night of the murder, the brothers entered the Beverly Hills mansion and shot their parents with a shotgun they bought in cash. Jose and Kitty Menendez were watching the film in the living room when Jose Menendez was shot five times, including the kneecap and the back of his head. Kitty Menendez raw on the injured floor, with one of her brothers fired the fatal explosion and the fatal explosion, authorities said.
The brothers are charged with murder after 18-year-old Eric confessed to murdering a therapist. During the two trials of the brothers, prosecutors argued that the murder was motivated by the brothers’ desire to access millions of dollars of inheritance. But the defense rebuttal that years of violent sexual abuse by his father preceded the shooting, justifying the killing as a form of self-defense.
Varian displayed bloody crime scene photos in court on Friday, sparking an eruption from defense attorney Mark Jelagos, who accused prosecutors of “pushing a dog and pony show.”
“There is no concern with the victims,” Jelagos said of almost 20 relatives of the brothers who sought they be released. “They are hurt by the DA for political purposes.”
“These two caused a massacre,” Varian fired back before gestured at his brother, who was watching the live feed.
Last month, after Hochman submitted his opponents, supporters of the Menendez brothers accused the district attorney of politicizing in their brother’s lives. Among his first moves to take office was to hire former prosecutor Cathy Caddy, who served as the rights attorney for victims of a lonely Menendez relative who opposed the release of his brother. He also demoted and transferred two lawyers who had argued for the release of his brother under Gascone.
“The entire DA motion is read like a campaign document, not a legal document,” brother cousin Anamaria Baratt said in a statement. “The law calls for fairness rather than personal revenge. Eric and Lyle were not only responsible, but also become the kind of men that this system would help create.
In their motion to advocate for the release of the brothers, Jelagos and attorney Clifford Gardner repeatedly said that the brothers had little violations of rules in prisons for more than 30 years, both of which were given the lowest felony risk assessment scores available from prison staff.
The brothers’ resentment petition will attract a large number of media to Van Nuis’ court over the coming weeks, but that is not their only potential path to freedom. In addition to a new trial motion based on new allegations of sexual abuse against his father, Gov. Gavin Newsom is considering applications for sibling leniency and has directed the state parole board to begin risk assessments for the siblings.
However, if they were recognized for generosity and appeared before the parole board, Hochman vowed to fight their release again.
Source link
