LOS ANGELES : Defense Presses Bid to Bar Brothers’ Taped Confession
A psychologist testified Monday he felt he had no choice but to give police tape-recorded notes of sessions with Erik and Lyle Menendez in which the brothers allegedly confessed to killing their wealthy parents in 1989.
Armed with a search warrant for his home and office, police demanded the tapes and retrieved them from a bank safe deposit box in March, 1990, Dr. Jerome Oziel said Monday at a hearing in Van Nuys Superior Court.
The warrant did not explicitly list the safe deposit box as a search site. Therefore, defense lawyers told Judge Stanley M. Weisberg, the alleged confessions should be barred as evidence in the brothers’ trial, due to begin June 14.
Prosecutors contended that the search of the safe deposit box was done in good faith, meaning the tapes were legally obtained. Weisberg indicated that he was likely to rule on the issue today.
Oziel made the tapes after sessions with the brothers in October and November, 1989. Lyle Menendez, 25, and Erik Menendez, 22, face the death penalty in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of Jose and Kitty Menendez.
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