Erik and Lyle Menéndez received a chance of freedom on Tuesday after more than 35 years in prison, with a Los Angeles County judge who granted a request to resent after hours of emotional testimony of family members that navigate and parents.
The judge of the Superior Court, Michael Jesus, said Tuesday night that it would be the brothers up to 50 years of life, which means that they will be awarded a probation hearing at some point in the future.
“We are deeply humble, grateful and happy for our family,” Lyle Méndez said in a phone call with one of his lawyers outside the court in Van Nys, who was transmitted to a time reporter.
Atty district. Nathan Hochman argued that the brothers had not been able to show an adequate “vision” about their crimes and had not atone for lies they told in the last 30 years about the nature of the murders, but Jesus ruled out those arguments as irrelevant. Prosecutors had to prove that the brothers presented an unreasonable risk for the public, according to Jesus, who said they did not.
After deciding that they should be renounced, Jesus allowed each brother to talk to the court about a zoom call from the prison. In crying directions that extracted sobs from relatives who have been fighting for their release for years, Erik and Lyle said they touched all the responsibility of their crimes.
Erik called the murders “an atrocious act of brutity against two people who had every right to live.”
“I have no excuse or justification, for what I did,” he said.
“I assume all the responsibility of all my options … the choice to point out a weapon to my mother and my dad … the choice to recharge … the choice to run and hide and do anything I can to escape,” said a tear Lyle moments before.
Jesus’ decision ended an eight -month saga that began when Dist. Atty George Gascón presented a petition for the brothers to sit in penalty at the end of last year, and followed an emotional day of testimony.
Anamaria Baralt, or cleaning the tears, testified on Tuesday that the relatives of the victims José and Kitty Menéndez wanted a judge to give their two cousins a minor sentence than life without probation for the murders of 1989 within Beverly Beverly.
“All on both sides of the family say that 35 years is enough,” he said in the courtroom. “They are universally forgiven on both sides of their families.”
The audience was the culmination of years of defense of the family to free the brothers, who was convicted of first degree murder.
Defensor lawyer Mark Geragos asked Jesus to resent the brothers to involuntary homicide, arguing that he was shot at his parents for fear he could kill them to cover up years of sexual abuse. But instead, Jesus’ ruling aligned with a request made last year by Gascón. The reduced sentence of 50 years to life makes them eligible for probation under the law of youth criminals of the State because they were the age of 26 at the time of murders.
“I want to give Judge Jesus a hat, who could launch all the noise that surrounds this, all the great, all the political back and the forest, and said the code,” he said: “Geragos said Tesday.” Hey, what justice said should go. “
A hearing will be probable in probation in the coming months. But Governor Gavin Newsom could also grant them clemency if he honors a pending application. Currently, an audience on that matter is scheduled for June 13.
The California resontent law is strongly leaning in favor of the defendants, a point Jesus reminded the courtroom or early Tuesday. According to state law, said Jesus, could block a request for resentment only if the defendant presents an “unreasonable risk of danger to public security”, which means that there is the risk of committing another violent crime, such as murder, murder.
Hochman announced his opposition to the launch of the brothers this year. The allegation that the brothers continually lie about the reason behind the murders, dismissing the idea that they really feared that José would kill them to cover up their alleged sexual abuse.
“The decision to return to Erik and Lyle Menéndez was monumental that has significantly involved for the families involved, the community and the principles of justice,” Hochman said in a statement on Tuesday night. “The motions of our office to withdraw the motion of resantentiation presented by the previous administration assured that the court would be presented to him all the facts before making such a consistent decision.”
The district prosecutor’s office did not present any witnesses on Tuesday. In a final argument that, repeatedly interrupted by Jesus, who continued to point out that prosecutors were applying the incorrect legal standard, the dist. Atty. Habib Balian questioned if the court really could believe that the brothers would not be offended again.
“The ressentation is an important word: trust,” said Balian. “The Menéndez brothers are asking you, trust us. He trusts that we win.
Balian also talked about the horrible nature of the crime scene, pointing out how Forensic showed that some of the shotgun explosions were fired to the range of death to highlight the viciolosses of the crime.
Baralt, whose mother was José Méndez’s older sister, said in the Court that the family had suffered decades of pain in the scrutiny of the murders.
“From the day it happened … a rigid examination of our family in the public eye has one leg,” he said, beginning to cry. “It has torture for decades.”
She said the family was repeated jokes in “Saturday Night Live” and lived as marginalized that stirred a “Scarlet M”.
In the horrible murders of 1989, the brothers bought shotguns with cash and opened fire while their mother and father watched a movie. José Menséndez was shot five times, even in the bruises and the back of the head. Kitty Menéndez crawled on the floor, injured, before one of the brothers reloaded and triggered a fatal explosion, the jurors heard in their two tests.
In the stand on Tuesday, Baralt echoed the justification of the brothers to kill their parents, saying that it was related to the sexual abuse they endured. But Baralt also told the judge that she believes that they have changed and that they are “very aware of the consequences of their actions.”
“I don’t think they were the same people who were 30 years ago,” he said.
Diane Hernández, another cousin, told the court of the Court about the “rule of the hall” that ruled where people could or could not be in the house of José Méndez. If the father were alone with Erik and Lyle in a room above, no one else could be at that level, he said. Ortentimes, said Hernández, José would say to the rest of the family that had just isolated “he felt sick” and could not join the family for dinner. In the interrogation, he said that he was never witnessing that any of the brothers was implemented.
Balian spent the morning trying to make holes in the relatively clean reputation that the brothers have won behind bars. Both brothers had repeatedly received “low” risk scores from state corrections officials to the recent report in which Hochman, who raised his level of risk to “moderate”.
Under the interrogation, Baralt acknowledged that he never thought that his cousins were able to kill his parents until they did. He also said that before his criminal trial decades ago, Lyle Menéndez had asked a witness to lied to him on the stand.
Almost two boxes of the relatives of the brothers, including several who testified on Tuesday, formed justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition to advocate their release as an interest in the case revived in recent years. The launch of a popular Netflix documentary about the murders, which included the discovery of the additional documentation of the alleged sexual abuse, helped feed a motion for a new judgment.
The family has become increasingly public in their fight after Hochman opposed the recommendation of his predecessor to resent. The relatives have repeatedly accused Hochman of bias against the brothers, asked to be disqualified from the case and claimed that he was intimidated and intimidated a private meeting. Hochman has denied all accusations of bias and irregularities, and says that he simply does not agree with his position.
Kitty Menéndez’s brother, Milton, was the only member of the family opposed to the liberation of Erik and Lyle, but died this year. Kathy Cady, who served as a lawyer for the rights of her victims, is now the head of the Victims Services Office of Hochman, another aggravation point for relatives fighting for the liberation of the brothers.
Tamara Goodell-A Menéndez Primo, who previously filed a formal complaint against Hochman on Tuesday who had no reservations about freeing the two men who killed his aunt Grandma, noting that Erik and Lyle had apologized repeatedly.
The Three Have Been Writing Letters Back and Forth Since 2000, Accordation to Goodell, Who Described Rehabilitative Program The Brothers have launched for other immates and said continuous to imprison Them Would Only “Present They Worth In This Do In This Do In This Do In This Do In This Do In This Do in This DO in This DO In This DO in This DO In This DO in This DO In This DO in This DO In This DO in This DO in This DO in This DO in This DO in This DO in This DO in This Do En este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en este DO en This do in this do in this do in this do in this do in this do I do.
She kept her anger for Hochman, describing a January meeting in which she said that the district prosecutor was hostile and defensive as she interrogated him about the hiring of Cady.
“You are a victim in this case, right?” Geragos asked him.
“I am slippery, you see it that way,” Goodell replied while looking at dagas at the Table of the Prosecutor’s Office.
