Menendez Brothers - The Evidence

The Menendez Brothers crime rocked Beverly Hills, CA and was the subject of Court TV. 

Now hear from a new D.A. that took on the case as Lyle and Erick Menendez sought a new trial or new sentence. 

Here we present the  D.A.'s position from the evidence they gathered. 

It did turn out they were allowed an opportunity to benefit from a unique law to California for a new sentence. They had top notch Defense Lawyers, of course. 

Take a listen to learn more about the special law that gave the Menendez Brothers a win for re-sentencing. 

We'll keep you up to date with new info as it develops

Leave a comment to let us know what you think about the facts the D.A. laid out and if you were aware of those facts.

SUBSCRIBE/COMMENT/LIKE/FOLLOW wherever you get your podcasts and on our new socials:

https://www.youtube.com/@twistedrulespodcast4u

https://www.facebook.com/twistedrulespodcast4u

https://www.instagram.com/twistedrulespodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hey everybody. Do you all remember that case out in Beverly Hills where Eric and Lau Menendez unalived their appearance some years ago? Very gruesome crime. Well, recently the Menendez brothers got a win. Um the DA out there had petitioned the court to consider resentencing them. That DA was voted out of office, and a new DA was brought in. And the current DA did a press conference where he outlined his issues with these individuals being re-sentenced. So take a look at the clip. Uh, this portion of the clip, I'm playing a portion of it so you guys understand his position on the facts of the case and resentencing. Take a listen.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Good afternoon. My name is Nathan Hawkman. I'm the Los Angeles County District Attorney. Today we will be giving you an update on the case of people versus Lyle and Eric Menendez. With me up here, we have uh Assistant Head Deputy Habib Bellian. We have Assistant District Attorney Maria Ramirez. We have Deputy District Attorneys Ethan Milius and Seth Carmack. As promised, after I became district attorney on December 3rd, we have put in the hard work to understand the Menendez case. We've reviewed over 50,000 trial transcript pages from two months-long trials that the Menendezes had back in the early 1990s. We also have spoken to defense attorneys, we've spoken to the prosecutors, we've spoken to law enforcement, we've even spoken to every Menendez family member who wanted to speak with us. So we've done the hard work to understand the Menendez case. And right now the Menendez case is on three parallel tracks. The first track is a habeas track. That is a motion that was filed in May of 2023, where the in that motion, the Menendeses are saying that they have effectively new evidence. And we'll get into this in more detail in a moment. New evidence that militates and warrants and justifies a new trial. The second track is a petition for clemency that the Menendeses have taken directly to Governor Newsom. Governor Newsome has the constitutional power, and it's unilateral, to grant that petition of clemency and commute the Menendez's case and release them immediately. He has that power today, he's had that power since 2019. He can exercise it, however, he has no deadline, there's no court hearing, and there's no appeal from his exercise of that power. And the third track is a track called resentencing. Resentencing is a somewhat California notion. There's not too many sentence states that have a resentencing statute. The resentencing gets triggered by a district attorney's motion, or in some circumstances, the motion of a court. And that motion, unlike a habeas motion, where a habeas motion will focus on the trial itself, a resentencing motion focuses on that trial but goes beyond that and deals with rehabilitation and other factors. So what happens in this continuum is we analyze some of the examples of the lies and the differing stories that have been told is that we actually saw stuff that was lied about before the killings, during at the time of the killings, and in the months and years afterwards. And this evidence ranges from everything, including days before the killings, the Menendezes didn't go ahead and get their shotguns in Los Angeles and use their real names. They drove down to San Diego and used a fake ID and a fake address of one of Lyle's friends. Hours before the murders happened, they came up with a pre-planned alibi, where they had actually gone ahead and contacted one of their friends to say that they were going to go to Batman the movie that night and they would meet the friend afterwards at the Taste of LA event. During the murders, the way that the murders actually happened was instructive to understand the deceit and the planning that went into it. There were over 12 shotgun blasts that occurred that night. One of the shotgun blasts was to Jose Menendez through the back of his head. After he was dead, there were shotgun blasts to each one of his knees. The shotgun blast to the mom initially didn't kill her. She actually ended up lying on the ground, groaning and bleeding in pain. And that's at the point where Lyle and Eric Menendez had run out of ammunition, reload, and Lyle puts the reloaded shotgun up to his mother's face and pulls the trigger. Thus staging it at the time like a gangland hit, which then becomes their deceit and lie in the net in the ensuing months that occurred. Then you had the deception that occurred where they hid the evidence of their crime. They had the wherewithal that night before they left the house to pick up each one of the shotgun shells that had been expended. They then had the shotgun shells with them. They had the bloody clothing and the shotguns. And they proceeded to go to Moholland Drive to dump the shotguns and to a car wash's dumpster to drop off the shotgun shells and their bloody clothing. Then they decided to execute the pre-planned alibi. Again, the deliberate, premeditated state at this point, where they went ahead and they actually went to the movie theater to get the tickets for Batman the movie. Turns out that they couldn't get the eight o'clock tickets because it was already past 10 o'clock. Then they called their friend to meet him at the Taste of LA, but by the point they got there, he'd already moved on. Then they actually called a friend to meet him again in another restaurant and they never show up. Eventually that friend comes to the house later that night only to see police tape around the house. Now, after they were arrested, uh the Menendezes also tried to suborn perjury in a number of different respects. They contacted uh one of Lyle's girlfriends, uh, Tracy Baker, gave her an actual script, a script that was actually found by the police, where it said that she they wanted her to testify that Lyle's mother, Kitty Menendez, had poisoned them, had poisoned the whole family. She actually did testify to this extent in the first trial, but didn't testify to this in the second trial. They also contacted one of uh Eric's friends, Brian Eslamania, and asked him to falsely testify that Eric and Lyle Menendez were so fearful of their parents the weeks before the murders that they tried to borrow a handgun from Eslamania. He wouldn't testify to this. They also, again, as I mentioned before, asked a different girlfriend of Lyle if she would testify that Jose Menendez had violently raped her. And she wouldn't do that either. Finally, when it dealt with the handguns themselves, the Menendezes both testified that they had gone to the Big Five Sporting Goods in Santa Monica to actually buy handguns before they switched to the shotguns. But it turns out the Big Five Sporting Goods in Santa Monica in 1989 didn't sell handguns. So we looked at again the credibility of the letters, and particularly this Andy Cano 1988 supposed letter, weighted in the continuum of lies, and it calls into drastic question whether or not this is in fact a 1988 letter written by Eric Menendez to Andy Cano about this sexual abuse. But again, even if it is, it's not timely because it was not presented at the time of trial. It was uh they didn't, they substantially delayed in bringing this motion from at least 2015 to 2023. And in certain respects, it's also not admissible. Which is why we conclude in our informal response that the court should deny the current habeas petition by the Menendez brothers. And if the court decides not to deny it at this point, the next motion or move for the court is to order what's called an order to show cause. Then we will file this again, this response, in response to the order to show cause. The menendezes can reply, and the court can rule at that point or have a hearing in the habeas matter. So, this is what we have been up to with respect to the habeas petition. Again, as I mentioned before, the governor has the clemency petition on his desk and he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and we will be dealing in the next couple weeks with the resentencing issue.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

So, the California Youthful Offender Law is the law that has allowed the Menendez brothers to be re-sentenced. And that law says that they can be re-sentenced because they committed the crimes before they were 26. This is a very touchy subject matter with a lot of state legislators, especially the Republicans, they just aren't happy campers about this at all. So you may want to Google the law so you can find out what all the parameters are. If you're someone that's interested in criminal justice reform, just Google the law. It's gonna apply to some, but it's not gonna apply to others. Now, the other thing is you're probably wondering how did this come back up after so many years? Well, there was a movie done on the Menendez brothers case. It aired on Netflix and it's titled Monsters. So that brought this whole thing up again. So you may want to check that out. And let me know what you think in the comment section. Be sure to like and subscribe, and I'll touch base with you guys on the next round. I gotta stay out of the air condition. My throat is so raspy. All right. See you guys next time.