Abramson to Defend Erik Menendez : Courts: Judge assigns attorney for the retrial in the murder case. He sets an annual fee of $125,000, half of what she had once sought.

Declaring that it is in the public interest to pay defense lawyer Leslie Abramson $125,000 a year in taxpayer funds to defend accused murderer Erik Menendez, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Tuesday reversed a ruling and appointed her to the case.

Judge Cecil J. Mills, who last month denied Abramson’s request for a $100 hourly fee to handle the retrial, on Tuesday approved an unusual deal to pay her an annual fee. It would cost less to do that, the judge said, than assign the case to the public defender’s office.

An experienced deputy public defender handling a death penalty case would earn $125,483 annually. Abramson said she would take a few hundred dollars less--$125,000. She also agreed that she would be paid one-twelfth of that each month and that the $10,416.66 monthly checks will stop the month the case concludes.

“Whatever you want to call it, we’re talking dollars and cents,” said Mills, known statewide for limiting lawyer fees in death penalty cases. Moments later, standing at the side of the bench, he and Abramson shook hands on the deal.

Outside court, Abramson seemed ambivalent. “It isn’t very much,” she said of the fee. She also proclaimed herself the “cheapest famous lawyer in the entire world at the moment.”

But she added: “I cannot walk away from this client.”

Erik Menendez, 23, and Lyle Menendez, 26, are charged with murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of their parents, Jose Menendez, 45, a wealthy entertainment industry executive, and Kitty Menendez, 47.

At the brothers’ first trial, theytestified that they killed their parents in fear and self-defense after years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty, contend that the brothers killed out of hatred and greed.

The first trial ended in January when separate juries, one for each brother, deadlocked between murder and lesser manslaughter charges.

Prosecutors vowed a retrial. Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg, who presided over the first trial and still is in charge of the case, has scheduled an April 15 hearing to set a new trial date.

Probate records indicate that the Menendez estate, once valued at $14.5 million, has essentially been run through. Without money, the brothers have no way to pay lawyers for the retrial.

At a March 9 hearing, Mills, who supervises the county’s criminal courts, appointed two deputy public defenders, Bill Weiss and Terri Towery, to defend Lyle Menendez. His chief lawyer at the first trial, Jill Lansing, had announced that she wanted to spend more time with a young daughter and Lyle Menendez said in court that day that the change was acceptable.

At that same hearing, Abramson said she wanted to stay on the case. But, unlike his brother, Erik Menendez said it would not be OK to change lawyers. He told the judge: “I don’t feel I could open up to another attorney.”

Mills turned down Abramson’s request for $100 per hour, up to a cap of $250,000, in taxpayer funds. He said she still had a valid contract to defend Erik Menendez and remained bound by it.

According to court records, Abramson has been paid $790,000 on the case. Of that, $140,000 was in court costs, meaning she has earned $650,000 in legal fees.

A few days after that March 9 hearing, Abramson filed legal papers asking Mills to reconsider, again asking for $100 an hour but omitting any mention of a $250,000 cap.

Accompanying her papers was a statement from Erik Menendez that said he had reconsidered and it was OK for Abramson to be relieved--if she was not going to be paid.

The younger brother’s change of heart turned the hearing Tuesday into a two-step process.

First, Mills formally relieved Abramson from the case.

Then the judge had to decide whom to officially appoint to be the younger brother’s lawyer: Abramson at taxpayers’ expense or the recently created alternate public defender’s office.

Because of the potential for conflict of interest, the public defender’s office could not represent both brothers.

The judge said he was inclined to appoint Abramson because she was familiar with the case. But he could not pay her by the hour, he said. In 1992, the County Board of Supervisors adopted a cost-saving policy that pays private attorneys in death penalty cases a flat fee instead of by the hour.

For the retrial, Mills said, he was prepared to offer Abramson a flat fee of $125,000.

That was unacceptable, she said. But, she said, she was willing to take $125,000 annually.

The new offer, Mills said, was enough to have “calmed the raging lion.”

Just to make sure of the terms, he reminded her: “If it should go away one month from now, you’d get one-twelfth of that annual fee.”

“If it should go away one month from now,” she replied, “I’d probably be so happy that I’d pay the taxpayers.”

The monthly payments begin next month, Abramson said outside court.

Whatever money she receives in defense fund donations from supporters of the Menendez brothers, about $30,000 so far, will pay paralegals, law clerks, expert witness fees and other court costs, she said.

Abramson also told reporters that it seems likely that the retrial will not begin for a year. Lyle Menendez’s lawyers will probably need that long to get up to speed, she said.

If the months go by, Abramson was asked, wasn’t it possible that she could rack up the $250,000 fee she had originally asked for?

“Yeah,” Abramson replied. “But the hard way.”