Menendez brothers lose long-shot bid for brand spanking new trial – NBC Los Angeles

A Los Angeles choose has rejected a ‘last-ditch’ authorized problem to Erik and Lyle Menendez’s homicide convictions, ruling Monday the brothers have failed to indicate sufficient proof that their homicide convictions had been unjust and so they deserve a brand new trial.

LA Superior Courtroom Choose William Ryan’s resolution to disclaim the writ of habeas corpus was detailed in a 16-page ruling that explains why he’s determined two objects of alleged new proof, upon which the brothers relied, didn’t meet the authorized threshold for granting such a petition.

“The courtroom finds that these two items of proof offered right here wouldn’t have resulted in a hung jury, nor within the conviction of a lesser instructed offense,” Choose Ryan stated.

“Neither piece of newly uncover [sic] proof is especially sturdy,” Ryan continued. “The proof alleged right here is just not so compelling that it will have produced an affordable doubt within the thoughts of no less than one juror or supportive of an imperfect self-defense instruction.”

Lyle Menendez’s Fb account posted a response saying the Choose’s resolution was disappointing, and, “The battle continues.”

“To assert that one other rape sufferer of Jose Menendez wouldn’t have affected the choice of no less than one juror is kind of the train in psychological gymnastics,” the submit stated. “And to say that the writing of Erik was additionally meaningless would likewise get a gold medal within the psychological gymnastics class. Onward!”

The habeas petition was the primary of three paths the Menendez authorized staff pursued in efforts to get the brothers launched from jail and was thought of the least prone to succeed.

Earlier this 12 months a distinct choose resentenced every of the brothers to 50-years-to-life for the 1989 shotgun killings of their dad and mom, Jose and Kitty Menendez, based mostly largely on their report of conduct whereas in jail, making them eligible for parole hearings.

Each had been denied parole for 3 years following hearings final month.

Nonetheless unanswered are the brothers’ requests for clemency despatched to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The Menendez brothers filed the habeas petition in Might 2023, citing a letter that would probably affirm that Erik Menendez was the sufferer of sexual abuse by his father, Jose, and the account of a former member of the band Menudo, who alleged that Jose had sexually abused him when he was a youngster within the early Nineteen Eighties.

“Briefly the brand new proof not solely exhibits that Jose Menendez was very a lot a violent and brutal man who would sexually abuse kids, nevertheless it strongly means that — in reality — he was nonetheless abusing Erik Menendez as late as December 1988. Simply because the protection had argued all alongside,” the 2023 petition stated.

If true Menendez attorneys Mark Geragos and Cliff Gardner argued the data, if it was offered to the jury, might have modified the result of the brothers’ homicide trial, as one or each objects might have supported the concept of an imperfect self-defense within the killings of their dad and mom.

“Had jurors seen the letter Erik Menendez wrote to Andy Cano, and realized that Jose Menendez anally raped and orally copulated a 13 or 14 year-old boy in 1984, the prosecutor wouldn’t have been capable of argue that “the abuse by no means occurred,” “[t]right here is not any corroboration of sexual abuse,” Jose Menendez was not the “type of man that may” abuse kids and was “not a violent and brutal man,” they wrote within the petition.

The LA County District Legal professional’s Workplace responded to the petition Aug. 7, by which DA Nathan Hochman argued the courtroom must be skeptical of the abuse claims and the alleged discovery of the letter.

“There are few homicide circumstances by which the proof of planning and premeditation is as stark as that offered on this case,” the DA’s response started. “Petitioners confessed on tape to murdering their dad and mom, revealing the extent of their forethought and deliberation.”

“Petitioners have did not justify an evidentiary listening to on any of their claims,” the response concluded. “Petitioners’ claims of allegedly “new proof” fail the particular necessities of part 1473…petitioners don’t make a exhibiting in any other case.”