LOS ANGELES (Court TV) — The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has filed a 132-page response opposing Erik and Lyle Menendez’s bid for a new trial.
The office said the filing “emphasizes the strength of the original convictions and the lack of any legitimate basis for retrial.”
FILE – Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez sit with defense attorney Leslie Abramson, right, in the Municipal Court in the Beverly Hills area of Los Angeles, during a hearing, Nov. 26, 1990. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
During their 1993 trial, the Menendez brothers testified they killed their parents in self-defense after suffering years of sexual abuse and feared they would be killed. Their first trial ended in two hung juries.
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During their second trial, Judge Stanley M. Weisberg ruled that no testimony of the sexual abuse allegations could be heard by the jury. The brothers were convicted of double murder in March 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A judge recently resentenced the brothers to 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole. They will appear before the state parole board on August 21 and 22. If the board determines they are eligible for parole, Governor Gavin Newsom must review the decision before they are released.
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In May 2023, the defense filed a habeas petition claiming two new pieces of evidence would’ve likely changed the outcome of their second trials. The filing cited a letter Erik sent to his cousin eight months before the murders of their parents and new rape allegations against Jose Menendez from ex-Menudo member Roy Rosselló.
Last month, a judge ordered prosecutors to explain why exculpatory evidence that supported the Menendez brothers’ claims of sexual abuse was withheld from the jury during their second trial.
In a statement, LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said,
“The central defense of the Menendez brothers at trial has always been self-defense, not sexual abuse. The jury rejected this self-defense defense in finding them guilty of the horrific murders they perpetrated; five different appellate state and federal courts have affirmed those convictions, and nothing in the so-called ‘new’ evidence challenges any of those determinations. Our opposition to this ‘Hail Mary’ effort to obtain a new trial over 30 years later makes clear that justice, the facts, and the law demand the convictions stand.”
In their filing, prosecutors argue that the defense could have introduced the “Cano Letter” at any point during the two trials, given Erik’s claim to have written it and both men testifying during the first trial, instead of waiting until 2023 to present it as “new evidence.”
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Prosecutors also detailed new witnesses who testified during the brothers’ second trial that showed evidence of conspiracy to commit murder and attempts to fabricate evidence.
A press release also states:
“The habeas corpus proceedings, which are intended only to determine if the Menendez brothers are entitled to a new trial, are running parallel to the Menendez brothers’ parole suitability hearing scheduled for Aug. 21 and 22. While this hearing was originally scheduled in June as a clemency proceeding, it has since been converted and rescheduled to determine parole eligibility. Once that eligibility determination has been made, Gov. Gavin Newsom will then have 90 days to affirm, reverse or modify that determination. Governor Newsom can also exercise his clemency power to pardon or release the Menendez brothers at any time since he took the oath of office in 2019.”
