Jurors’ Rift Emerged Early and Ran Deep

The gulf between the factions among the Menendez jurors was vast--and no evidence, testimony or argument could draw them into common ground.

On one extreme was juror Sharyn S. Bishop, 42, of Northridge, who said: “I don’t think Lyle is a threat to society. If he lived across the street from me, I wouldn’t be afraid.”

On the other end of the spectrum sat Jude Nelson, an unemployed marketing representative from Sylmar, who called the evidence against Lyle Menendez “a classic first-degree murder case.”

And then there were the jurors who spent half a year sitting in judgment of Erik Menendez, the other brother accused of murdering their parents: that panel almost came to blows.

Those jurors, speaking for the first time since they were dismissed 15 days ago, described a contentious and sometimes mean-spirited 19 days of deliberations. The split was so deep, so early, that some believed that others arrived with their minds made up--creating, in the words of juror Hazel Thornton, “too much prejudice . . . to overcome.”

“There was . . . not enough concentration on evidence and the law,” said Thornton, a 36-year-old Lake View Terrace resident who voted for voluntary manslaughter--one of the lesser charges--for the younger of the two Beverly Hills brothers accused of murdering their parents. The Pacific Bell employee specifically complained that some jurors had a “bias against rich people and homosexuals.”

With participants in the case finally free Friday to talk about the top-secret deliberations--which ended in two hung juries--defense attorney Leslie Abramson portrayed the Erik Menendez jury as sharply divided along gender lines, with frequent verbal clashes and even “some threat of physicality.”

Abramson spoke on the basis of extensive discussions with members of the panel. She revealed Friday that after her half of the case ended she had several jurors over to a 7 1/2-hour dinner party at her Hancock Park home.

“The biggest problem with Erik’s jury was it was a mix of individuals who could not work together,” she said.

By contrast, Lyle Menendez’s panel, whose 25 days of deliberations were interrupted by the Northridge earthquake, was a relatively harmonious group in which gender did not play a role, according to Nelson.

While sometimes jurors merely “tolerated one another,” he said, they were generally able to discuss and consider one another’s views.

“I raised all kinds of hell. . . . We all spoke our piece,” said Nelson, 52, who held out for first-degree murder and said he was frustrated with the deadlock. “I have a hunch in the back of my mind this defense was drummed up somewhere. We really wanted to come to a consensus. But I just wasn’t going to let these guys walk and have manslaughter.”

Jill Lansing, Lyle Menendez’s lawyer, said the older brothers’ panel got along extremely well and she predicted that some close friendships that formed during the trial will continue now that it’s over.

Lansing also said Lyle Menendez’s jurors told her that “at one point, the vote was split 9 for voluntary manslaughter and 3 for second-degree murder”--a more forgiving assessment than the final tally.

The change suggested that jurors had been actively weighing one another’s viewpoints--perhaps, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Bozanich, up until the very end.

“People were switching between voluntary (manslaughter) and murder and . . . they were switching between the degrees as well,” she said after she, too, had a brief talk with some of Lyle Menendez’s jurors. “I got the impression that they were switching as recently as today.”

The six-month trial had revolved in large part around the brothers’ contention that they had been sexually abused by their parents. Although prosecutors said the Menendezes were driven by greed, lawyers for the brothers said they had killed out of fear--and the believability of that assertion clearly became the most divisive issue in the jury room.

The women on Erik Menendez’s jury were more likely to be swayed by the tales of abuse, many said, while more men saw the issue as either incredible or irrelevant.

“There’s a possibility (of abuse), but I don’t think that would rectify the fact that they did take the law into their hands to kill their parents,” said juror Robert Rakestraw, 53, who voted for first-degree murder in Erik Menendez’s case. “I don’t think that justifies their actions, if molestation did occur.”

Rakestraw, a full-time postal carrier from Canoga Park, said he felt badly that decisions were not reached in either case, and at least one juror on the other panel said she thought they would be roundly mocked for their inability to resolve the case.

“I gave it my all,” said Ruth Slike, 60, a retired housewife from Sun Valley who served on Lyle Menendez’s jury. “I don’t think the general public thinks the jury is any more than a bunch of idiots.”

But Thornton, of the Erik Menendez jury, said the problem was not in the jurors.

“I have some advice for the prosecution,” she said. “Get some more evidence and prove it in a convincing manner.”

Times correspondent Ed Bond contributed to this story.