Trial Summary: Week 16

Developments in the retrial of Lyle and Erik Menendez from Jan. 29 - Feb. 2.

JANUARY 29
The defense presented testimony to try and refute prosecution claims that Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents in order to get the family fortune.

Marta Cano, Jose Menendez's older sister,testified that shortly after the August 1989 killings, the brothers told her that they believed they had been written out of their father's will a year earlier.

The jury also heard from Mary Dominquez, who helped the Menendez family move into their Beverly Hills mansion in 1987. She said she saw male pornographic magazines and videos in packing boxes in the den and in the master bedroom. The defense has suggested this is evidence of Jose Menendez's sexual preferences. If he's interested in sex between men, the defense argues, then he was interested in sex with his sons.

Meanwhile, Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled the defense can not present testimony from Marta Cano's former husband, Peter, who testified in the first trial that Jose Menendez punched 5-year-old Lyle in the stomach, causing him to wet his pants. The judge ruled the incident was irrelevant.

Cano became the latest witness that Judge Weisberg has cut from the defense witness list in the last two days. He previously eliminated six witnesses from the defense list, ruling that they are irrelevant in the current trial, although they did testify at the first trial. The witnesses include Lyle and Erik's teachers, friends and a coach, and all would have testified about the parents' alleged psychological mistreatment of their sons.

JANUARY 30
After presenting 25 witnesses and more than 400 exhibits, the defense indicated that was about to rest its case.

And it does not appear that the jury will hear testimony from Lyle Menendez.

Lyle arguably was the defense's strongest witness in the first trial. But attorneys decided not to have him testify in this trial because of the damaging impeachment evidence the prosecution gathered since the first trial. The prosecution now has a letter Lyle wrote his former girlfriend, telling her exactly how to testify in the first trial.

There is also Norma Novelli, Lyle's one-time confidant, who tape-recorded her conversations with him and went to prosecutors with the tapes. Judge Stanley Weisberg has ruled that Novelli can't testify unless Lyle takes the witness stand.

The defense also did not present testimony from numerous teachers, coaches and friends of the brothers, who testified in the first trial about life in the Menendez home. In response to prosecution objections, Judge Weisberg ruled that most of the witnesses were irrelevant or that their testimony was redundant.

The judge also severely limited the testimony of mental health experts -- he allowed one compared to the five who testified in the first trial.

So Erik Menendez became the defense star witness in this case. The defense's other main witness was Dr. John Wilson, the defense's expert in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He testified that Erik suffered from the disorder on the night of the killings.

During the first trial, the defense took three months to present 56 witnesses.

The prosecution is scheduled to call seven rebuttal witnesses. They include Dr. Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who examined Erik; Craig Cignarelli, Erik's former best friend, and Jamie Pisarcik, Lyle's former girlfriend.

JANUARY 31
The defense rested after the trial judge dealt two final blows to its case.

Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled defense attorneys could not introduce the testimony of Dr. William Vicary, a psychiatrist who has been treating Erik Menendez since 1990. The judge ruled the testimony only would be relevant as sur-rebuttal testimony, to rebut the testimony of the state's psychiatrist.

The judge then ruled the defense could not introduce the videotaped testimony of Lyle Menendez's testimony from the first trial. So the defense rested after 39 days of testimony from 25 witnesses.