Developments in the retrial of Lyle and Erik Menendez from Feb. 19 - 23.
FEBRUARY 19
The court was in recess.
FEBRUARY 20
Closing arguments began with prosecutor David Conn ridiculing the brothers' claims of abuse as "the silliest most ridiculous story ever told in a courtroom."
Conn attacked Lyle and Erik Menendez and their defense in an argument that often was belittling and sarcastic.
Conn told jurors about two types of defenses: the "I-didn't-do-it defense" and the "okay-I-did-it-but-not-the-way-the-state-says-I did it" defense. The brothers, he said, had to choice but to select the second defense.
"We caught the defendants essentially red-handed," he said. "We have the defendants guilty of killing their parents. There is no way to get around that."
The brothers admit shooting Jose and Kitty Menendez in the living room of the family's Beverly Hills mansion on August 20, 1989.
The brothers claim they were afraid their parents were going to kill them. The defense contends that Jose Menendez threatened to kill his sons to stop Lyle from exposing him as a child molester. On the night of the killings, the father made overtures that he would sexually assault Erik, the defense claims.
But Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled the defense could not argue that Erik and Lyle killed their parents because they mistakenly believed their parents would kill them first.
The judge said there was not sufficient evidence that the brothers were in imminent danger on the night of the shootings. In ruling on legal instructions to be read to jurors after closing arguments, Judge Weisberg essentially threw out the theory of "imperfect self-defense."
The theory was the heart of the defense in the first trial and convinced at least half the jurors on each of the two panels to vote to convict the brothers of manslaughter instead of murder.
Judge Weisberg said he would allow the defense 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.
Conn urged the jurors to find the brothers guilty of murder and not manslaughter.
"Heat of passion does not apply even if you go down the road hand-in-hand with Erik Menendez," he said, suggesting that even if jurors believe Erik's claims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse, it does not constitute heat of passion.
The state contends the brothers killed their parents in order to get their hands on the family fortune.
FEBRUARY 21
The tensions in the Menendez home were caused by the realization that Lyle and Erik Menendez would never live up to their father's expectations and not because they were molested, a prosecutor charged during the second day of closing arguments.
Prosecutor David Conn described Jose Menendez as a Cuban immigrant who had lived the American dream by becoming a successful entertainment executive. All he wanted from his sons, Conn told jurors, was for them to achieve what he had achieved and more.
But by 1989, the family realized that would never happen. Conn seemed to almost taunt the brothers as he turned towards them and said: "Lyle Menendez did not have the drive. He did not have the intellect. He did not have the motivation. and Erik Menendez was an even greater failure. he was weak. Erik Menendez was soft...He was described as a crybaby."
The brothers stared wide-eyed at Conn as he described their father as a man who loved his sons too much.
Attorneys for the brothers asked the judge for a mistrial and denounced Conn's final argument as "a fairy story" that falsely cast an incestuous, abusive father as a loving parent. In a hearing outside the presence of the jury, Leslie Abramson, Erik's lawyer, said Conn's depiction was unfair because defense lawyers were barred from putting on most witnesses whose testimony would have been critical of the parents. Judge Stanley Weisberg denied the request.
Lyle, 28, and Erik, 25, are charged with shot gunning their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion on August 20, 1989. The brothers' first trial ended when two separate juries deadlocked. Only one panel is hearing the second trial.
Conn asked jurors to convict both brothers of premeditated first-degree murder, conspiracy and the special circumstance of lying in wait, which could bring them the death penalty. The prosecution argues the young men killed to acquire the family fortune.
Conn also argued that a tape recording of a therapy session the brothers had with Dr. Jerome Oziel was the smoking gun in the trial. On the tape, the brothers discussed the killings in detail but did not say anything about killing their parents out of fear after a lifetime of abuse. Dr. Oziel, the brothers' former psychologist, did not testify during the trial.
The prosecutor also denounced the Menendez brothers as spoiled children. "What you see are two young men who felt they were entitled, they were spoiled. They seized the power," Conn said.
The brothers claim they were afraid their parents were going to kill them. The defense contends that Jose Menendez threatened to kill his sons to stop Lyle from exposing him as a child molester. On the night of the killings, the father made overtures that he would sexually assault Erik, the defense claims.
FEBRUARY 22
Prosecutor David Conn attacked the testimony of Erik Menendez as a self-serving script, full of inconsistencies and lies.
Conn ridiculed Erik's claim that he and his brother shot their parents out of fear for their lives, telling jurors that the brothers' actions in the week leading up to the August 20, 1989, slayings were inconsistent with two people who were afraid of being killed.
Conn insisted that the portrait of the brothers as abused sons terrorized by a tyrannical father was untrue. He said the defendants could have left their parents' home and sought refuge elsewhere if they truly feared being killed.
"He (Erik) wants you to believe his father is abusing him on a routine basis, forcing him to engage in sexual acts against his will," Conn said. "He expects you to believe it never occurred to him to leave...Erik Menendez would have thought about it. Erik Menendez would have considered it. To say it never occurred to him is absurd."
Meanwhile, the California Supreme Court refused to overturn Judge Stanley Weisberg's ruling that the defense could not argue that Erik and Lyle killed their parents because they mistakenly believed their parents would kill them first.
The judge said there was not sufficient evidence that the brothers were in imminent danger on the night of the shootings. In ruling on legal instructions to be read to jurors after closing arguments, Judge Weisberg essentially threw out the theory of "imperfect self-defense."
FEBRUARY 23
Erik and Lyle Menendez knew they were going to kill their parents when they rushed into their living room with loaded shotguns on August 20, 1989, a prosecutor told jurors during the fourth day of closing arguments.
In urging jurors to return a verdict of first-degree murder, prosecutor David Conn said the defense had not done anything to refute the evidence that the fatal shootings of Jose and Kitty Menendez were premeditated and deliberate.
He dismissed a psychologist's finding that Erik Menendez was molested by his father and suffered from "battered person syndrome" at the time of the shootings.
"The fact is, the battered person syndrome does not exist," Conn said. "It is not a proper diagnosis...It is not a mental disorder."
Erik, 25, and Lyle, 28, contend that they killed their parents out of fear following a lifetime of physical, sexual and mental abuse. The brothers' first trial ended when two separate juries deadlocked. Only one panel is hearing the second trial.
Conn, in an unusually prolonged final summation, also returned to a theme he addressed at the outset, urging jurors to reject Erik's claims that he was sexually abused by their father throughout his life.
"Did Jose Menendez ever put a hand on Erik Menendez? Did he ever sexually touch him in any way? I submit he did not," Conn said.
