Erik and Lyle Menendez were given a chance to freedom Tuesday after more than 35 years of imprisonment, and a Los Angeles County judge approved their resentment demands in emotional testimony from family members, who said the brothers had spent enough time in prison for the brutal 1989 parental killings.
High Court Judge Michael Jesic said late Tuesday that he will continue to live with the brothers for 50 years, meaning he will receive a parole hearing at some point in the future.
“We are very humble, grateful and happy with our family,” Lyle Menendez said on a call from an attorney outside Van Nuys.
district. Atti. Nathan Hochman argued that the brothers failed to show proper “insight” about the crime and did not atone for the lies they told them about the nature of the murder in the past 30 years, but Jesus saw these arguments as irrelevant. Jesus said prosecutors needed to prove that the brothers posed unreasonable risks to the public, and he said they did not do so.
After deciding to deal with their indignation, Jesic allowed each brother to speak to the court via the prison's Zoom phone. Erik and Erik and Lyle said as they sobbed and cried among the relatives fighting for release that they were fully responsible for their crimes.
Erik called the murder “a cruel act against two people with the right to survive.”
“I have no excuses, no reason,” he said.
“I take full responsibility for all my choices…choose to point the gun at my mom and dad’s choice…choose to reload…choose to run, hide and escape from everything I can,” said one of the tearful Lyle earlier.
Jesus’ decision ended an eight-month legend that began at that time. Atti. George Gascón filed a petition late last year asking the brothers to be outraged by the brothers and followed the exciting testimony.
Anamaria Baralt often wipes tears, testified Tuesday that relatives of the victims Jose and Kitty Menendez hope the judge sentenced her two cousins to two cousins, rather than teenagers without parole, for their 1989 murders inside Beverly Hills Mansion.
“One of us said 35 years is enough,” she said in court. “Their families are generally forgiven.”
The hearing was the final year that the family advocated for years to free the brothers convicted of first-degree murder.
Defense attorney Mark Geragos asked Jesus Christ to resent the brothers’ sins and argued that they shot and killed their parents for fear that their father might kill them in order to cover up their years of sexual abuse. But instead, Jesus’ ruling is consistent with Gascon’s request last year. The 50-year reduction in sentence allowed them to qualify for parole under the state's young offender law, because they were no more than 26 years old at the time of the murder.
“I want to give Judge Jesnik a hat tip that Judge Jesus Christ was able to remove all the great noise, all the grand political back and forth, and he did what the code part said,” Glagos said Tuesday afternoon. “He did what justice said should have happened.”
Parole hearings may be scheduled in the coming months. But Gov. Gavin Newsom can also grant them the responsibility to hear pending requests. Currently, a hearing on the matter is scheduled to be held on June 13.
California's resentment law tends to favor the defendant, which was the courtroom that Jesus Christ reminded of Tuesday's early hours. Jesus said that under state law, he could only block resentment petitions if the defendant posed an “unreasonable risk to public safety hazards,” meaning that if they were released, there would be a risk of another violent crime (such as murder, manslaughter or rape).
Hodgman announced this year that he opposed the brothers' release. He claimed that the brothers continued to lie about the motive behind the murder, refuting their real fear that Jose would kill them to cover up his alleged sexual abuse.
“The decision to resent Erik and Lyle Menendez is a huge decision and has a significant impact on the family, community and judicial principles involved,” Hochman said in a statement Tuesday night. “Our office's motion to withdraw the resentment motion filed by the previous administration ensures that the court presents all facts before such a decision to come to such an outcome.”
The District Attorney’s Office did not file any witnesses Tuesday. In a closing speech, the Jesus repeatedly interrupted, who kept pointing out that the prosecutor was applying for a wrong legal standard deputy. Atti. Habib Balian questioned whether the court really believed the brothers would not commit again.
“Indignation is an important word: trust,” Barian said. “Brother Menandes is asking you, trust us. Believe us not to commit more crimes. … We have to ask ourselves, are they trustworthy?”
Balian also talked about the horrible nature of the crime scene, noting that forensic evidence showed that some shotgun explosions were fired within the pointed range to highlight the malignancy of the crime.
Baralt's mother, the sister of Jose Menendez, said in court that the family suffered decades of suffering due to the review of the murder.
“From the day that happened… it has been a relentless inspection of our family,” she said. “It has been tortured for decades.”
The family was the butts that repeatedly joked on “Saturday Night Live”, she said, like a wanderer wearing a “scarlet M.”
In the creepy murder of 1989, the brothers purchased shotguns with cash and opened fire while their mother and father were watching a movie. Jose Menendez was shot five times, including the knee and the back of the head. Jurors heard in two trials that Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor, injured, before reloading and firing a deadly explosion.
At the booth on Tuesday, Bharat responded to the brothers’ reasons for killing their parents, saying it was related to the sexual abuse they suffered. But Bharat also told the judge that she believes they have changed and “are very familiar with the consequences of their actions.”
“I don't think they were from 30 years ago,” she said.
Another cousin, Diane Hernandez, introduced the court to the “corridor rules” that ruled where people were in Jose Menendez’s home. She said that if the father and Erik and Lyle were alone in the upstairs room, no one else could be on this level. Hernandez said he would often tell Jose and then tell his family that his brother, who had just been quarantined, was “disgusting” and could not join his family for dinner. During cross-examination, she said she had never witnessed any brother being abused.
Balian tried to punch holes in the relatively clean reputation the brothers had earned in prison in the morning. Both brothers received a “low” risk score from state correction officials, until Hockman cited a recent report that raised the risk level to “moderate.”
After cross-examination, Bharat admitted that she never thought her cousin would be able to kill her parents until they did it. She also said that before the criminal trial decades ago, Lyle Menendez asked witnesses to lie to him in the stands.
Nearly twenty of the brothers' relatives, including several who testified Tuesday, constituted justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, advocating their release of interest in the case in recent years. A popular Netflix documentary about the murders, which included the excavation of other documents suspected of sexual abuse, provided a motion for the new trial.
The family became increasingly public in the fight after Hodgman opposed his ex's advice to resent them. Relatives repeatedly accused Hockman of being biased against the brothers, called on him to be disqualified from the case and accused him of intimidating and bullying them at a private meeting. Hawkman denied all allegations of prejudice and misconduct and said he simply disagreed with their position.
Kitty Menendez's brother Milton is the only member of the family against Erik and Lyle's release, but he died this year. Kathy Cady, who serves as a victim rights lawyer and is now head of the Hochman Victim Services Department, is a point aggravated to fight for the brothers’ release of relatives.
Tamara Goodell, the cousin of Menendez, had previously filed a formal complaint against Hochman. He testified on Tuesday that she did not reserve the release of the two men who killed her great aunt, noting that Erik and Lyle had repeatedly apologized to her and her family.
Goodell said the three had been writing back and forth, describing the rehabilitation programs the brothers initiated for other prisoners and said continuing to imprison them would only “prevent the benefits they can do in this world.”
She saved her anger for Hochman, describing a meeting in January where she said the district attorney was hostile and defensive when asking him about Cady's recruitment.
“You are the victim in this case, aren't you?” Glagos asked her.
“I’m glad you’ve seen it this way,” Goodell replied, staring at the prosecution table.
