Menendez Trials' Collapse Discourages Both Sides (original) (raw)
U.S.|Menendez Trials' Collapse Discourages Both Sides
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/30/us/menendez-trials-collapse-discourages-both-sides.html
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- Jan. 30, 1994
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January 30, 1994
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Nobody can be happy today about the prospect of starting all over again in the Menendez brothers' murder trial after six months of effort, expense and high emotion collapsed on Friday in a mistrial.
The results, with two separate juries locked in severe divisions, offered little encouragement for either the prosecution or the defense. Given the strong competing emotions aroused by the issues of parental killings and of child abuse, the new trial promised by District Attorney Gil Garcetti seemed to point toward new deadlocks.
"I think that the complexity of this case -- and the fact that it draws on individual life experiences -- makes this a case that will probably never result in a unanimous verdict," a defense lawyer, Jill Lansing, said after the mistrial was announced.
Lyle Menendez, 26, and his brother, Erik, 23, were charged with first-degree murder in the shotgun killings of their wealthy parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, as they watched television in their Beverly Hills home on Aug. 20, 1989. The brothers admitted the killings but said they had acted in self-defense based on irrational fears that they were about to be attacked. They said they had suffered years of sexual abuse by their father.
Separate juries found themselves similarly fragmented, with some jurors voting for first-degree murder, some for second-degree murder and some for manslaughter, based on varying perceptions of the case.
"The very bottom line was that just about half of the jury believed that there was abuse; the other half didn't," said Mark Dearing, 44, an electrician who voted for first-degree murder on Erik's jury.
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