Los Angeles County. Atti. Nathan Hochman’s move has caused Erik and Lyle Menendez to ignore the facts of the case and motivated by political self-interest, the brothers’ lawyers debate in a new court application.
Hodgman’s predecessor George Gascón sought indignation for the brothers in a shotgun murder of his parents in 1989. Before losing to Hockman in November’s election, Gasco asked the judge to revoke Mendendezes’s life sentence without the possibility of parole.
He urged them to have 50 years of life. Since they were young criminals, 18 and 21 years old – when they shot Jose and Katie Menendez at their home in Beverly Hills, outrage could qualify them for parole and be free after thirty years in prison.
Since Hockman took over as District Attorney, he has objected The brothers were given a new trial. last month A motion was filed to cancel Gascon’s request for resentment.
When filing the motion, Hockman said the brothers repeatedly lied about the crime and even claimed that the murder was carried out by the Mafia. He questioned whether their self-defense claims were valid—they were “allegedly actually worried that their mother and father would kill them on murder night.” The brothers had insisted that they were sexually and emotionally abused by their parents for years.
The brothers did not show “full insight and responsibility” for the crime, and the former team of prosecutors ignored violating major rules of the prison, Hockman said.
Brother lawyers led by Mark Geragos and Cliff Gardner, portray Hochman’s actions as motivated by political motivation rather than legal reasoning, rather than case law requires.
“The question here is whether the record indicates that the decision to withdraw a request for a resentment motion is based on ‘legitimate reasons’,” they wrote, “or:’or:’ or:’change the political winds.'”
They noted that Hochman reassigned two prosecutors, Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford, who worked with Gascón to conduct Menendez’s motion and suggested the release of the brothers. Hawkman appointed Kathy Cady, a private attorney, as head of DA’s victims services. Cady represents the only relative of Menandes who expressed his opposition to the brothers. Her client, Milton Anderson, was the brother of Kitty Menendez, who died thereafter.
Defense attorneys say Hockman is trying to rewrite history.
The attorney wrote: “The withdrawal motion contains serious factual and legal errors and “it ignores the expression of Eric and Lyle’s continued responsibility and remorse in decades of prison. ”
Hochman “continues to focus on falsehood [the brothers] After the crime, it was even told in the trials in 1993 and 1996. “The defense admitted that the two “lied and tried to fabricate evidence,” but for thirty years they had been talking about crime.
In 1989, the Menendez Brothers bought a pair of shotguns with cash, walked into their Beverly Hills mansion and shot their parents while watching a movie in the family living room. Jose Menendez was hit five times, Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor, injured, and the brothers reloaded and fired the deadly explosion. Prosecutors believed during the trial that the murder was inspired by millions of dollars in inheritance, while the defense believed it was a form of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by his father.
Their attorney said the motion to file a lawsuit suggests that Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, “posed an unreasonable risk to the community,” but their attorney said, “no mention of the person who scored the lowest in the felony risk assessment score – zero.” They further said that the rules cited by the DA were trivial and were made in prison for decades.
Hochman cited Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to murder Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, saying the Menendes brothers lacked insights into their crimes as comparable to the killer of the RFK.
But Glagos and the brothers’ legal team said that for years, Sirhan had been interested in his inner gui, and in prison he insisted that he was innocent. Menandes, however, has been guilty since his conviction, and their lawyers said a quote was quoted in a 1996 interview with brother Barbara Walters: “What we do is awful and I wish we could go back.”
The brothers’ lawyers repeatedly pointed out that about 30 members of the family supported their release, claiming that Hockman misunderstood what the two trials were between Eric and Lyle Menendez and believed that “the prosecution and defense recognize the issue of sexual abuse, which is at the heart of the entire case.”
Resentment is just one of the three routes the brothers seek for freedom. They cite new evidence: a letter to a cousin, one of whom wrote to his cousin before killing and abuse: another person’s allegation – Former member of the boy band Menudo – He was sexually abused by Jose Menendez.
They also pursued leniency with Newsom, which directed the state parole board to conduct a risk assessment of whether the release of the Menendez brothers would pose an unreasonable risk to the public. That would be their first step in bidding wide.
Hawkman said he would object to their release if the brothers were to be accepted into a wide-ranging and eventually a parole hearing.
