The Jury Instructions

The jury that deliberated the fate of Lyle and Erik Menendez worked with a set of jury instructions dramatically different from those in the first trial.

At the first trial, jurors had the option of convicting the brothers on the lesser offense of manslaughter based on the brothers' imperfect self-defense theory: that they had a genuine but unreasonable belief that their parents were on the verge of killing them.

This time, Judge Stanley Weisberg threw out that instruction. The judge ruled there was not sufficient evidence that the brothers were in imminent danger when they burst into the living room den and fatally shot their parents on August 20, 1989.

At the first trial, jurors also had the option of returning manslaughter verdicts on the basis of heat of passion - that the brothers killed after a sudden quarrel or in anger.

This time, the defense was allowed to argue that the brothers shot their father in the heat of passion, but not their mother. While there was sufficient evidence to show that Jose Menendez might have provoked his sons into committing a homicide, there was insufficient evidence to show that Kitty did so, the judge said.

The jury had to reach verdicts on three counts for each brother: two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. Also, there are two special circumstances -- lying in wait and multiple murder.

Once the jury found the brothers guilty of first-degree murder, it had to decide the special circumstances of lying in wait -- whether the murders were committed after a period of waiting and watching for an advantageous moment to take the victims by surprise. In other words, an ambush.

Because the jury convicted both brothers of first-degree murder on both counts, multiple murder automatically applied.