A judge has rejected the request of Erik and Lyle Menéndez for a new trial, ruling that the additional evidence suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their father would not have changed the result of the trial that has put them in prison for more than 35 years for killing their parents.
The ruling, transmitted by the Judge of the Superior Court of the Los Angeles County, William C. Ryan, is the last blow to the brothers' commitment to release. Both were denied probation during long audiences at the end of August.
A habeas corpus Petition presented on behalf of the brothers In 2023 he argued that they should have been able to present additional evidence in the trial that his father, José Menéndez, was sexually abusive.
The new evidence included a 1988 letter that Erik Menéndez sent to his cousin, Andy Cano, saying that he was abused of his adolescence. There were also accusations made by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the band of children often, who said that José Menéndez violated him.
The brothers have argued for a long time that they feared for their lives that their father continued to abuse them, and that their parents would kill them to cover up the nightmare conditions at their home in Beverly Hills.
The prosecutors argued that the brothers killed their parents with shotguns in 1989 to obtain access to their mass inheritance, and have repeatedly highlighted Erik and Lyle's wild spending in the months that followed the death of their parents. .
“None of the evidence adds to the accusations of abuse that the jury already considered, however, discovered that the brothers planned, then executed that plan to kill their abusive father and his complicit mother,” Ryan wrote. “The Court considers that these two evidence presented here would not have resulted in a jury hanging or in the conviction of an instructed minor crime.”
Ryan agreed with Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman that the petition should not grant the brothers a new trial because the evidence of abuse would not have changed the fact that the brothers planned and carried out the murders in the execution style in the family living room.
Ryan wrote that the new evidence would not have turned out that the court of first instance proceeds differently because the brothers could not demonstrate that they experienced the fear of “imminent danger.”
A spokesman for the group of more than 30 relatives of Menéndez who have been fighting for the release of the brothers did not immediately respond to a request for comments. A spokesman for the district prosecutor's office was not immediately available to comment.
The horrible murders occurred after the brothers used cash to buy the shotguns and attacked their parents while watching a movie in the familiar living room.
The prosecutors said that José Menéndez was hit five times with shotgun explosions, even on the back of the head, and Kitty Menéndez crawled on the wounded floor before the brothers recharged and fired a final and fatal explosion.
The request rejected this week was one of the three paths that Menéndez's legal team has continued in the search for freedom for the brothers. Another judge at the beginning of this year resigned from 50 years of life for the murders, making them eligible for probation after they were originally sentenced to life imprisonment.
Both were denied liberation at their first probation hearing, but they could end before the state panel again as soon as 18 months. Clemency requests are also pending before Governor Gavin Newsom.
The first trial ended with jurors hanging for each brother. In the second, the accusations of abuse and support testimonies were restricted, and Lyle and Erik Menéndez were convicted of first degree murder in March 1996.
