A week before a hearing that could be pivotal to the Menendez brothers getting out of prison, the Los Angeles District Attorney today slammed the siblings’ lawyers for their “drastic and desperate step of attempting to recuse the entire Office of the Los Angeles County District Attorney.”
“The defense conflates a conflict of interest with zealous advocacy,” says the 15-page opposition filing Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court by DA Nathan Hochman’s office. “In our adversarial system of justice, the parties often do not agree These disagreements are neither novel nor improper. They are often necessary hallmarks of our adversarial system’s search for the truth.”
Filed on April 25, the Menendezs’ recusal motion claims it is “made on the grounds that, absent recusal, a conflict of interest would render it likely that the defendants will receive neither a fair hearing nor fair treatment through all related proceedings.”
Aiming for a May 9 scheduled hearing on the matter, the DA’s filing today gets down and dirty in its response:
“The entire defense argument over recusal boils down to the defense not being happy with the current District Attorney’s position on resentencing; therefore it concludes the Office and the District Attorney himself must be so biased that they should be thrown off the case,” the document signed by Deputy DAs Habib Balian and Ethan Milius for their boss. “This desperate argument may work in a press interview but fails in a court of law based on an adversarial system of justice. Accordingly, the motion for recusal should be summarily denied as a matter of law, obviating the need for an evidentiary hearing.”
Earlier this year, Hochman’s withdrew his predecessor George Gascón’s move to support a reconsideration of the sentencing of Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez for the shotgun murder of their parents in 1989, and rejected hopes for a new trial. After the Menendez case sitting on his desk for ages, Gascón suddenly picked up on it after the success of the Netflix and Ryan Murphy series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story series and some documentaries claiming new evidence, and his reelection prospects dimmed. Wiping the incumbent out last November, previous failed California Attorney General candidate Hochman promised to carefully look over the files before making his own judgement
“Our position on resentencing is not yet, rather than never, as it depends on the Menendez brothers finally coming clean after 30 years with all the crimes, lies, deceits, and cover-up they engaged in and refuse to renounce,” Hochman said Friday repeating his now much heard mantra on the Menedenzs and their 1996 life without parole sentencing.
In that context, the D.A. and Menendez family attorneys Mark Geragos- and Bryan Freedman clashed face-to-face in court on April 17. Long delayed, that gathering was supposed to be a resentencing hearing on the brothers’ life without parole sentence.
Instead, the packed session in front of Judge Micheal Jesic quickly went off the rails.
Various relatives of the brothers, who were at last month’s hearing virtually, already wanted the DA removed from the matter because of the unexpected showing in a previous hearing of a brutal and bloody crime scene photograph from 1989 of the siblings’ father Jose Menendez. That situation was further inflamed by the confusion created from the DA’s sudden possession of supposedly completed parole board risk assessment report ordered in February by Gavin Newsom as a part of the clemency petition before the governor.
In the judicial equivalent of throwing his hands up in frustration, Judge Jesic cut the two-day long resentencing session short two weeks ago and ordered everyone to return on May 9. That 8:30 am starting hearing to clear up the confusion of the confidential and unfinished parole board report and accusations against the DA’s office could end up being in the judge’s chambers and out of the public eye. Whether that hearing at the Van Nuys Courthouse will even address resentencing or be preoccupied with motions like this recusal also remains to be seen.
Bryan Freedman (Apu Gomes/Getty Images)
What is as clear as day is that the Menendez family lawyers are not too impressed at all by the DA’s official response to their recusal motion of last week.
“The only ones honoring the memory of Kitty and Jose Menendez are the victims which are their 24 family members,” Bryan Freedman told Deadline this afternoon with reference to the brothers’ parents and the two dozen family members who want to see them free ASAP. “Rather than do his real job and take steps to stop the looting, smash and grabs, record number of burglaries and other rampant criminal behavior in Los Angeles, DA Hochman would rather book appearances on TV and social media to show that he thinks childhood sexual abuse has no impact on human behavior,” the lawyer adds, with a swing at Hochman’s rejection of the Menendez brothers argument they killed their parents in self defense because of the years of alleged attacks by their music executive father.
“Verbally abusing the family member victims is not an example of being tough on crime.”
Pulling no punches, Freedman continues: “This man is out of touch with reality. His position that if Lyle and Erik admit to purported lies made 35 years ago, that he would change his position is preposterous. It may get his face and name in the media but obviously that factor is not only wrong but has zero impact whatsoever on whether they are likely to commit a dangerous felony in the future.”
Amidst what’s going down in LA Superior Court in regard to the Menendez brothers, it is a June 13 session ordered by Gov. Newsom for each sibling in front of the parole board that may end up being the true deciding factor. Those individual appearances by the now middle-age Erik and Lyle Menendez and the resulting recommendation of their rehabilitations efforts that could see them walk free or die behind bars.
