Judge Postpones Trial of Menendezes to Aug. 16

The judge in the Menendez murder case Wednesday pushed the start date of the brothers’ retrial back to Aug. 16.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg said there was not enough time to settle the issues that remain unresolved and keep the previously scheduled June 12 start date.

The key issue is whether the defense will be able to call expert witnesses to testify that Lyle and Erik Menendez were “battered children” akin to a beaten woman. Weisberg set a July 17 hearing on that issue and said he expected the hearing--at which both the prosecution and defense will offer testimony from mental health experts--to run a week or longer.

At that hearing, Weisberg ordered, the defense must prove both that a “battered child syndrome” exists--meaning that it is recognized as valid by mental health experts--and that the Menendez brothers suffered from it at the time of the slayings.

If the defense cannot meet both prongs of that test, he said, the experts will not testify for jurors. Weisberg ruled several weeks ago that the retrial will be conducted before one jury, not two.

Lyle Menendez, 27, and Erik Menendez, 24, remain in County Jail without bail. They are charged with first-degree murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.

During their first trial, the brothers admitted killing their parents but said they did so in fear for their own lives after years of abuse. Prosecutors countered that the brothers killed out of hatred and greed.

The first trial lasted six months. It ended in January, 1994, when separate juries, one for each brother, deadlocked between murder and manslaughter charges.

At the first trial, the defense called half a dozen mental health experts to explain the brothers’ conduct. In court two weeks ago, in response to a prosecution objection to such testimony, Weisberg said he was not convinced that legal grounds exist to permit the defense to use that strategy again.

At the first trial, prosecutors did not raise a broad objection to the defense experts, deciding instead to ridicule the expert testimony. A new prosecution team, however, has since pointed out that a 1991 law that would allow such testimony applies only to cases involving a claim of “battered woman syndrome”--not abused children.

In court Wednesday, Leslie Abramson, Erik Menendez’s defense attorney, called the prosecution objection “frivolous.” But Weisberg called it “legitimate,” and ordered the July 17 hearing.

Meanwhile, also in court Wednesday, the prosecution and defense argued over the admissibility of telephone interviews with Lyle Menendez--13 tapes in all, recorded by a San Fernando Valley woman, Norma Novelli, who befriended the older brother.

The tapes are due to be published later this month in book and tape form by Dove Books and Dove Audio Inc., which last year put out Faye Resnick’s best-selling “diary” about Nicole Brown Simpson, said Michael Viner, president of the two companies.

Defense attorneys alleged that the tapes were recorded without Lyle Menendez’s permission. Reached after court, Novelli denied that, asserting that “of course” Lyle Menendez knew that their many conversations were being taped. Weisberg set a May 15 hearing for more wrangling over the tapes.