Menendezes’ Retrial Is Scheduled for March 13 : Courts: The judge is leaning toward the case proceeding before a single jury. Left unanswered are where it will be held and whether Jill Lansing will defend Lyle Menendez.

Lyle and Erik Menendez will go back to trial March 13, the judge in the brothers’ murder case said Friday, adding that he was inclined to hold a single retrial before one jury.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg said a March date struck a balance between the prosecution’s request to start in December and a protest by Lyle Menendez’s lawyers that they would not be ready until August.

Weisberg conceded that there was a “substantial amount of material” to absorb from the first seven-month trial, which ended in a mistrial in January. But a year, he said, was enough time to prepare.

Lyle Menendez, 26, and Erik Menendez, 23, will again face first-degree murder charges for the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents.

The brothers, who remain in County Jail without bail, testified that they killed their parents in fear after years of abuse. Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty, contend that the brothers lashed out in hatred and greed.

At the first trial, separate juries deadlocked between murder and lesser manslaughter charges.

But Weisberg last week ruled out separate juries for the retrial, saying that arrangement presented too many logistic problems.

He said Monday that it was his “expectation” that the case would proceed before a single jury. But he stressed that he had not yet ruled out trying the brothers separately, one after the other.

In part, he said, that ruling depends on what defense attorneys tell him about witnesses whose testimony might help one brother, but hurt the other, creating a potential conflict between the defense camps.

Still to be decided is whether the new trial will be in Van Nuys, as was the first, or Downtown. Prosecutors said last week that they prefer Downtown. So did Leslie Abramson, Erik Menendez’s lawyer. Lyle Menendez’s defense team did not yet have an opinion on the issue.

The other major lingering question is whether Jill Lansing, who was Lyle Menendez’s lead lawyer at the first trial, will be coming back to the case.

Lansing resigned after the first trial, saying she wanted to spend more time with a young daughter. The public defender’s office then took over the older brother’s defense.

But Lansing filed court papers last month saying that Lyle Menendez wants her back because he wants to go back to trial sooner than the public defenders can be ready.

Weisberg said in court Monday that he was unsure if he had the legal authority to appoint Lansing when the public defender’s office was available.

He also stressed that her appointment carries a complication--the chance that she could be called as a witness against Lyle Menendez. That possibility led Monday to a two-hour closed-door hearing.

During the first trial, Lyle Menendez admitted that he offered to bribe an ex-girlfriend to give false testimony, and prosecutors have said they might seek to call Lansing to testify about the episode. Weisberg made it clear Monday that he would like to avoid having an attorney become a witness, and added: “There has never been any indication Miss Lansing did anything wrong.”

The next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 5.