Contention That Killings Lacked a Plan Is Challenged : Trial: Prosecutor questions an expert who examined the Menendez crime scene and concluded that because it was ‘disorganized,’ the murders were not premeditated. Witness sticks to her view.

Insisting there is a difference between poor planning and no planning, prosecutors took issue Monday with a defense expert’s opinion that Lyle and Erik Menendez did not kill their parents with premeditation.

But expert Ann Burgess, in a second day on the witness stand, stuck to her testimony that the crime scene was “disorganized,” indicating a lack of planning.

In a cross-examination give-and-take that left jurors yawning and looking frequently at the courtroom clock, Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Bozanich and Burgess, who has studied crime scenes for the FBI, fenced all day long--with both seeking the advantage, no matter how small the point.

“Your definition of plan is not everyone’s definition?” Bozanich asked at one point.

Refusing to budge, Burgess said: “I don’t know. I haven’t checked it out with everyone.”

Erik Menendez, 22, and Lyle Menendez, 25, are charged with first-degree murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of their parents, Jose Menendez, 45, and Kitty Menendez, 47, in the TV room of the family’s Beverly Hills mansion.

If convicted, the brothers could be sentenced to death.

Prosecutors contend that they killed out of hatred and greed. The brothers say they lashed out in fear and self-defense after years of physical, mental and sexual abuse.

Under questioning early Monday by defense lawyer Leslie Abramson, Burgess, a University of Pennsylvania professor of psychiatric mental health nursing, explained again the reasons she viewed the scene in the TV room as disorganized.

On a warm August evening, inside a house in a residential neighborhood, the brothers used loud shotguns, fired numerous rounds and hit the parents 16 times. Burgess said this combination indicates that the brothers did not give much thought to getting away with the killings.

When Bozanich took the lectern to ask the questions, she asked if there was a difference between poor planning and lack of planning.

“We don’t give it an adjective,” Burgess said.

At the end of the day, Bozanich asked much the same question. The answer was: “We just tend to call it planning--rather than use an adjective.”

The prosecution contends that the brothers planned what they hoped would be the “perfect crime,” and hardly acted on the spur of the moment. They have emphasized how the brothers bought shotguns out of town with a phony ID, then waited two days, picking a night when the family maid was off, to blast away at their parents.

Bozanich compared a plan to kill to a wedding that a bride plans for months--only to see the judge arrive late, the ceremony seem perfunctory and the food turn out a mess.

“Does the fact that my wedding did not go well mean I didn’t plan it?” the prosecutor asked.

The professor, who testified that she is due to be paid about $9,000 for her defense work so far, answered: “One could say there were certain factors that were checked and double-checked, and carefully outlined, which usually goes into a good plan. That’s not to say that extraneous factors can’t occur.”

Bozanich persisted, saying, “The point is, at the end of this wedding, the person does in fact get married,” then added, “Dr. Burgess, lack of planning is not the only explanation for a disorganized crime scene?”

“There could be other factors,” Burgess conceded.