Menendez Brothers Score Court Win as a judge allows hearing
The Menendez brothers scored a victory in court on Friday, while a judge denied the movement of the public prosecutor in Los Angeles to withdraw a resentment.
The decision means that a hearing will take place next Thursday and Friday, after which the DA and prosecutors will argue or the brothers will be sufficiently rehabilitated to justify a reduced punishment.
Lyle and Erik Menendez have served 35 years for the murders of their parents in their home in Beverly Hills in 1989 in 1989. The brothers witnessed the hearing at a distance via Webex from the state prison in San Diego County.
District lawyer George Gascón moved last October to reduce the prison sentence of the brothers from life without conditional release of up to 50 years to life. That reduction, if granted, would immediately be eligible for conditional release.
Nathan Hochman, who defeated Gascón in the November elections, tried to withdraw the petition of his predecessor and argued that the brothers had not taken full responsibility for their crimes and had brought a threat to the community.
During a long hearing on Friday, lawyers argued on both parties about whether Hochman had the right to withdraw the request of his predecessor and whether the brothers are really rehabilitated. Habib Balian, speaking for the DA’s office, argued that the brothers never admitted that their claim of self -defense had been manufactured, or took responsibility for repeatedly lying about the murders and recruiting their friends to lie in court on their behalf.
Judge Michael Jesic ruled that the DA’s office had not done enough to show that the petition of the earlier administration had to be withdrawn. The judge said he was trying to avoid a situation in which petitions could only be offered and withdrawn on the basis of a change in the administration.
“There is no new information,” the judge said. “Nothing of this is really new. They are held on their story. It goes to whether they have been rehabilitated.”
A precedent in California Hof requires that a DA offers a “legitimate reason” to withdraw a resentment. The judge ruled that the precedent of the court did not provide sufficient clarity to determine what is eligible as ‘legitimate’.
The lawyer of the Menendez brothers, Mark Geragos, destroyed the DA’s office for offering a long presentation about the original crime, which even included a representation of a photo of the dead body of Jose Mendez. Geragos called Balian’s presentation a “dog and pony show” and compared it with the recent filibuster of Senator Cory Booker.
