Members of Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez’s family have taken the Los Angeles County District Attorney to court for “an affront to victims everywhere” by displaying bloody and brutal 1989 crime scene photos of the shotgun blasted body of the brothers’ music executive father in a hearing last week.
“A grotesque spectacle occurred last Friday in this Court,” declares a filing today in LA Superior Court from Bryan Freedman and other lawyers for relatives seeking the siblings release from prison after over 30 years. “This Court should ensure such a mockery never occurs again,”
“The District Attorney has made a mockery of the Victim’s Bill of Rights, or Marsy’s Law, which provides victims with the constitutional right to be ‘treated with fairness and respect’ and to be ‘free from intimidation, harassment, and abuse’ throughout the criminal justice process, including post-conviction proceedings,” the document put in the court docket this morning against DA Nathan Hochman, his deputies and office adds.
To that, the more than 20 members of the Menendez family represented in today’s filing say the “scandalous behavior” showing those “horrific and gruesome photographs of the 1989 deaths of their relatives” by the brothers was entirely personal, intentional, part of an antagonistic relationship with Hochman.
They also say showing those photos was against the law.
“It is patently obvious that the District Attorney treated the victims’ family members as second-class victims, due to a policy disagreement between District Attorney Hochman and the victims’ family members,” the frank 6-page filing states. “The District Attorney represents all victims, not simply those that share the Office’s policy views. In the same token, Marsy’s Law provides constitutional rights to all crime victims.”
Among the fallout from the “lurid” photos being shown in court last Friday, the brothers’ 85-year-old aunt and sister to José Menendez ended up in the ICU. Already fighting cancer, Terry Baralt collapsed in her LA hotel room on April 13 and, while out of critical condition, the octogenarian remains hospitalized – as today’s filing emphasized. Late on April 13, the DA’s office put out a statement both justifying and apologizing for showing the photos of the maimed and dead José Menendez. However, the statement made no direct reference to Baralt or her condition. That omission stung the family, I’m told.
To that, after previously asking for Hochman and team to be removed from the case, the relatives are fast tracking for an early morning April 17 hearing on this latest turn in the Menendez saga. Hitting the law and order new-ish DA where they hope it hurts, the family is seeking a court order to “admonish” DA Nathan Hochman and his office. They also want guarantees that they’ll be given the heads-up next time such photos and other graphic material is exhibited.
In a packed week for the Menendez brothers, their supporters and opponents, any potential hearing later this week would come on the same day that a long delayed pivotal resentencing hearing for the siblings also begins. With the brothers in attendance for the April 17-18 sessions, if Judge Michael Jesic agrees the duo have shown true rehabilitation and meet the standard required, the life without parole sentencing from the mid-1990s could be rescinded. Upon a probe by the parole board, who are already conducting a risk assessment of the brothers as ordered by a clemency request holding Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Menendezs could theoretically be out within weeks.
After two individual trials in the 1990s and allegations of relentless sexual abuse by José Menendez, no one debates if Erik and Lyle Menendez blasted fatal holes in their father and mother Kitty with shotguns in the family’s Beverly Hills home 26 years ago. The role of that abuse and subsequent trauma has grown in recent decades, though it was a factor in the trials of decades ago. Amidst supposed new evidence and an overall exsemplatory time behind bars by the brothers, who are now in the same facility near San Diego, Netflix and Ryan Murphy’s hit Monsters: The Lyle & Erik Menendez Story and several documentaries brought the matter back into the spotlight.
In that vein, Hochman’s resounding defeat of progressive incumbent George Gascón , who introduced a motion for resentencing late last year before the election, set the stage for what has become a very public showdown. After weeks of consideration, Hochman last month gave a press conference to say the brothers “do not meet the standards for rehabilitation,” and his office was withdrawing the motion for reconsideration. It was at that now infamous April 11 hearing, where the vivid photos were displayed, that Judge Jesic rejected the DA’s move and ruled a formal resentencing hearing would go ahead later this week.
The LA County DA’s office did not respond to request from Deadline for comment on Tuesday’s filing by the family. Outside of the motion itself, the family said today of its filing and the case overall: “Life is not black and white. It is messy and painful and complicated. But believing in redemption doesn’t mean we’ve stopped being victims. It doesn’t mean we should be treated with contempt. We’re asking the court to recognize that our constitutional rights matter and to ensure that the District Attorney’s office follows the very letter of the law they are charged with to uphold.”
