Menendez family asks L.A. judge to give brothers a chance at freedom
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The resentencing hearing for Erik and Lyle Menendez kicked off Tuesday morning with emotional testimony from family members, several of whom said in court that the brothers should be freed from prison for the shotgun killing of their parents more than 30 years ago.
Anamaria Baralt, often wiping away tears, testified that the relatives of victims Jose and Kitty Menendez want a judge to give her two cousins a lesser sentence than life without parole for the 1989 murders inside their Beverly Hills mansion.
“We all on both sides of the family say 35 years is enough,” she told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic in a Van Nuys courtroom. “They are universally forgiven by both sides of their families.”
The hearing, which is expected to last two days, is the culmination of years of advocacy by the family to free Erik and Lyle Menendez. The brothers were convicted of first-degree murder.
Defense attorney Mark Geragos has asked Jesic to resentence the brothers to manslaughter, arguing they shot their parents to death out of fear their father might kill them to cover up years of sexual abuse. If Jesic changes the sentence as requested, it would probably lead to their immediate release.
Last year, then-Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón asked for the brothers to receive a new sentence of 50 years to life in prison, which would make them eligible for parole under the state’s youthful offender law. Under that scenario, a parole board would still ultimately decide on their freedom.
If Jesic rejects the resentencing approach, the brothers could still receive clemency from Gov. Gavin Newsom.
California’s resentencing law leans heavily in favor of defendants, a point Jesic reminded the courtroom of early Tuesday. Under state law, Jesic said, he could block a resentencing petition only if the defendant poses an “unreasonable risk of danger to public safety,” meaning there is a risk they will commit another violent crime — such as murder, manslaughter or rape — if they are released.
Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman this year announced his opposition to the brothers’ release. He alleged that the brothers had failed to show proper “insight” into their crimes and contended they continue to lie about the motive behind the murders, dismissing the idea that they genuinely feared Jose would kill them to cover up abuse.
“The Menendez brothers have never come fully clean for all the lies, the cover-up, the deceit, that they have engaged in for more than 30 years,” Hochman said outside the courthouse Tuesday morning during a brief news conference.
Jesic has noted in court that Hochman’s arguments are more applicable in a parole hearing, not a resentencing proceeding.
Baralt, whose mother was Jose Menendez’s older sister, said in court that the family had endured decades of pain from the scrutiny of the murders.
“From the day it happened ... it has been a relentless examination of our family in the public eye,” she said, beginning to cry. “It has been torture for decades.”
She said the family was the butt of repeated jokes on “Saturday Night Live” and lived like outcasts who wore a “scarlet M.”
A judge ruled Friday that a resentencing hearing for brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez can go forward next week, potentially clearing a path to parole decades after they killed their parents.
In the gruesome 1989 murders, the brothers bought shotguns with cash and opened fire as their mother and father watched a movie. Jose Menendez was shot five times, including in the kneecaps and the back of the head. Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor, wounded, before one of the brothers reloaded and fired a fatal blast, jurors heard at their two trials.
On the stand Tuesday, Baralt echoed the brothers’ justification for killing their parents, saying it was related to sexual abuse they endured. But Baralt also told the judge that she believes they have changed and are “very aware of the consequences of their actions.”
“I don’t think they are the same people they were 30 years ago,” she said.
Diane Hernandez, another cousin, told the courtroom about the “Hallway Rule” that governed where people could or could not be in Jose Menendez’s home. If the father was alone with Erik and Lyle in an upstairs room, no one else could be on that level, she said. Oftentimes, Hernandez said, Jose would then tell the rest of the family whichever brother he had just isolated “felt sick” and could not join the family for dinner. On cross-examination, she said she never witnessed either brother being abused.
A resentencing hearing that could have given the brothers a shot at parole was delayed after a fight over a parole document ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom paralyzed proceedings.
Prosecutor Habib Balian spent the morning trying to punch holes in the relatively clean reputations the brothers have earned behind bars. Both brothers had repeatedly received “low” risk scores from state corrections officials until the recent report that Hochman invoked, which raised their risk level to “moderate.”
Under cross-examination, Baralt acknowledged that she never thought her cousins were capable of killing their parents until they’d done it. She also said that before their criminal trial decades ago, Lyle Menendez had asked a witness to lie for him on the stand.
Nearly two dozen of the brothers’ relatives, including several who testified Tuesday, formed the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition to advocate for their release as interest in the case reignited in recent years. The release of a popular Netflix documentary on the murders, which included the unearthing of additional documentation of the alleged sexual abuse, helped fuel a motion for a new trial.
The family has become increasingly public in its fight for Erik and Lyle’s release after Hochman opposed his predecessor’s recommendation to resentence them. The relatives have repeatedly accused Hochman of bias against the brothers, called for him to be disqualified from the case and alleged he intimidated and bullied them during a private meeting. Hochman has denied all accusations of bias and wrongdoing, and says he simply disagrees with their position.
Kitty Menendez’s brother Milton was the only member of the family opposed to Erik and Lyle’s release, but he died this year. Kathy Cady, who served as his victims’ rights attorney, is now the head of Hochman’s Bureau of Victim Services, another point of aggravation for the relatives fighting for the brothers’ release.
Tamara Goodell — a Menendez cousin who previously filed a formal complaint against Hochman — testified Tuesday she had no reservations about freeing the two men who killed her great-aunt, noting Erik and Lyle had repeatedly apologized to her and the family.
The three have been writing letters back and forth since 2000, according to Goodell, who described rehabilitative programs the brothers have launched for other inmates and said continuing to imprison them would only “prevent the good” they can do in this world.
She saved her ire for Hochman, describing a January meeting at which she said the district attorney was hostile and defensive while she questioned him about Cady’s hiring.
“You’re a victim in this case, aren’t you?” Geragos asked her.
“I’m glad you see it that way,” Goodell responded, while staring daggers at the prosecution table.
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