A county judge refused DIST. Atty. On Friday, Nathan Hochman to revoke a petition to resolve the Menendez brothers who was deposited by his predecessor, paving the way to an audience that could offer the brothers a path to Liberty next week.
The judge of the Superior Court, Michael Jesic, rejected Hochman’s request after a tense hearing and a day that saw the prosecutors displaying the bloody crime photos of the bodies of Jose and Kitty Menendez in a courtroom bordered by their loved ones, many of whom want their killers, the sons Erik and Lyle Menendez, released.
In October, former dist. Atty. George Gascón sought to ensure that the brothers were sentenced to 50 years for life – a decision could have made them eligible for parole as young delinquents because they made the murders before the age of 26. After Hochman beat Gascón in the November elections, he promised to review the Menendez affair.
Last month, Hochman officially announced his opposition to their release and declared that he would ask a judge to cancel the Gascón petition and to consider his deposit as the official position of the District Prosecutor’s Office. He focused on the idea that the brothers had not shown an appropriate “insight” on their crimes, but Jesic rejected this as not relevant for the renowned procedure and said that “there was nothing really new” in the analysis of the case offered by Hochman.
“Justice has conquered politics,” said defense lawyer Mark Geragos outside the courtroom.
On Friday, Jesic’s decision opens the way to a renowned hearing, which should last at least two days and start in Van Nuys on Thursday.
Legal experts said there were little precedent for Hochman to try to bring Gascón’s motion back, although he has the right to add his own position to the file.
“These murders were calculated, premeditated and cold blood,” said Hochman in a statement released on Friday evening. “Our position remains clear: until the Menendez brothers ended up being cleaned with all their self -defense and subordinate lies and trying to subjurate the perjury, they are not rehabilitated and present an unreasonable risk of danger to public security.”
On Friday in court, the district dist. Atty. Habib Balian told a judge that Gascón simply had not “obtained” the case and had only carried out a half -cooked analysis of the past trials of the brothers and their will to accept the responsibility of the murders.
Hochman and Balian said that the brothers were still lying on the circumstances of their crimes. Balian said on Friday that neither Gascón nor the prosecutors who deposited his three -page renowned petition even recovered the archive files before rendering a decision.
Balian also repeated Hochman’s assertion that Gascón took the case for political purposes, even if he had followed Hochman by around 30 points in the polls and even some of his closest advisers admitting defeat.
Sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of a parole for the 1989 puffing rifle murders of their rich parents, Erik and Lyle Menendez saw the support of their liberation wave after the publication of a popular Netflix documentary last year and the discovery of new potential evidence of Boy Band Menudo.
In the petitions of the search for a new trial, the lawyers of the brothers cited the allegations of new sexual abuses against Jose Menendez as essential proof of their self -defense complaints.
On Friday, Balian argued that the brothers had repeatedly led to witnesses during their previous trials to lie about the threat they met with their parents in order to strengthen their self -defense argument. As Balian spoke, Hochman looked at the gallery.
Last month, Hochman filed an 88 -page motion opposing the resentment of the brothers, arguing that the brothers always lying on the grounds of their crimes – and therefore did not take responsibility for murders – and pose an unreasonable risk to the public.
“The Menendez brothers have continued to lie for more than 30 years on their self-defense-that is to say their alleged fear that their mother and their father kill them on the night of murders,” said the motion. “In addition, during these 30 years, they have not accepted the responsibility of the large number of lies they have told in the context of this defense.”
The night of the killings, the brothers entered their manor of Beverly Hills and shot their parents with hunting rifles which they had bought with money. Jose and Kitty Menendez watched a film in the living room when Jose Menendez was killed five times, including in the ball joints and the back of the head. Kitty Menendez crawled on the ground injured before one of the brothers recharged and draws a fatal explosion, the authorities said.
The brothers were accused of murder after Erik, then 18, confessed the killings to his therapist. During the two brothers ‘trials, the prosecutors argued that the murders were motivated by the brothers’ desire to access their several million dollars heritage. But defense lawyers have only been the years of violent sexual abuse by their father preceded the shots, justifying killings as a form of self -defense.
On Friday, Balian posted photos of the scene of bloody crime in court, triggering an eruption of Geragos, who accused the prosecutor of “presenting a dog and pony show” intended to relaunch the initial murder case, when the goal of the hearing was to determine whether Gascón’s motion was to be revoked.
“There is no concern for the victims,” said Geragos about nearly two dozen of the relatives of the brothers who called for their release. “They are traumatized by the DA for political purposes.”
“These two caused carnage,” said Balian before making a gesture to the brothers, who looked at a live flow.
Geragos also questioned Hochman’s repeated invocation of the “insight” that the brothers had to show in their crime to justify the liberation, noting that it is a norm relevant for a parole audience, and not a request for renown.
Judge Jesic agreed, claiming that case law does not require a district prosecutor to “insist up on” insight “in such a petition and that this could not serve as a basis for withdrawal.
After Hochman tabled his opposition last month, the supporters of the Menendez brothers accused the district prosecutor of making politics with the life of the brothers and sisters. Among his first moves in office, he was there to hire Kathy Cady, a former prosecutor who was a lawyer for the rights of the victims to the sole parent of Menendez opposed to the liberation of the brothers. He also downgraded and transferred the two lawyers who pleaded for the release of the brothers under Gascón, a decision which sparked a civil lawsuit against Hochman and a close political ally at the office.
“This is a show proceeding by a DA which is frankly a return to the 90s or, in this case, the 80s,” said Geragos.
In their motion pleading for the release of the brothers, Geragos and the lawyer Clifford Gardner reiterated that the brothers underwent few rules during their 30 years and more prison, and the two received the lowest risk assessment scores available to prison officials.
Although the renowned petition of the brothers will attract mass of media in a courtroom in Van Nuys in the coming weeks, it is not their only potential path to freedom. In addition to their request for a new trial based on new allegations of sexual abuse by their father, Governor Gavin Newsom is considering the request for the leniency of the brothers and ordered the state’s conditional liberation board to launch a risk assessment of the brothers.
If they were granted to leniency and appear before the commission of parole, Hochman promised to fight their release again.
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