{"id":425576,"date":"2024-11-26T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T15:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=425576"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Menendez-brothers-bid-for-freedom-delayed-until-January","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Menendez-brothers-bid-for-freedom-delayed-until-January\/","title":{"rendered":"Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom delayed until January"},"content":{"rendered":"

Family of Lyle and Erik Menendez told a judge Monday they want the men freed from the life sentences they are serving for the shotgun murders of their parents, as their court case suffered a delay.<\/p>\n

The pair have been in prison since a blockbuster trial in the 1990s that became almost compulsory viewing for millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

Television audiences were riveted by the gruesome details of the slayings of Jose and Kitty Menendez at the family’s luxury Beverly Hills mansion.<\/p>\n

The two men, who have spent more than three decades behind bars, had been due to appear by videolink at a hearing in Los Angeles, their first court appearance in 28 years as a campaign to set them free gathers pace.<\/p>\n

But technical difficulties scuppered the appearance and the hearing was pushed back to the end of January.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Judge Michael Jesic called the two men’s elderly aunts to the stand to hear them plead for the brothers to be freed.<\/p>\n

“I would like to be able to hug them and see them,” Jose Menendez’s older sister Terry Baralt, 85, said.<\/p>\n

“I would like them to come home.”<\/p>\n

Kitty’s sister, Joan Vander Molen, echoed that.<\/p>\n

“No child should go through what Erik and Lyle went through,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They never knew if tonight will be the night when they would be raped.”<\/p>\n

Prosecutors painted the crime as a cold-hearted bid by the then-young men — Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18 — to get their hands on their parents’ $14 million fortune.<\/p>\n

But their attorneys described the 1989 killings as an act of desperate self-defense by young men subjected to years of sexual abuse and psychological violence at the hands of an abusive father and a complicit mother.<\/p>\n

The case saw a huge surge of renewed interest this year with the release of the Netflix hit “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”<\/p>\n

The hearing comes after a campaign to secure their release, supported by Kim Kardashian and other celebrities.<\/p>\n

“Set them free before the Holidays!” wrote Tammi Menendez, Erik’s wife, on social media last week.<\/p>\n

Public interest was such that the court held a lottery for the 16 seats in the public gallery.<\/p>\n

Nick Bonanno, a former high school classmate of Erik’s, was the first to arrive at the court, taking his place at the head of the line at 4:30 am (1230 GMT).<\/p>\n

“I wanted to show support to… Eric and Lyle,” he told AFP ahead of the hearing.<\/p>\n

“It’s all about supporting and healing, not just for the families, but for us as a culture.”<\/p>\n

Elena Gordon, 43, said she wanted “to witness a part of our local history.”<\/p>\n

– ‘It’s really awesome’ –\u00a0<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

The hearing\u00a0was intended as a starting point for lawyers working on three routes to free Erik Menendez, 53, and Lyle Menendez, 56.<\/p>\n

Attorney Mark Geragos has filed a writ of habeas corpus, an attempt to effectively vacate the brothers’ first-degree murder conviction, which could free the brothers immediately.<\/p>\n

Another route is an effort to get the men re-sentenced on the same conviction, which would open the way for them to request parole.<\/p>\n

Finally, Geragos has submitted a clemency request to California Governor Gavin Newsom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Journalist Robert Rand, who wrote a book about the case, and who is in regular touch with the brothers, said the family was optimistic.<\/p>\n

But, he said, no one was expecting any quick fixes.<\/p>\n

“They’re hopeful,” he said. “They don’t know what’s going to happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I believe this could take much longer than was originally anticipated. It could be six months, could be eight months, could be a year, but eventually they will get out.”<\/p>\n

With excitement over the case near fever pitch, tourists are regularly making pilgrimages to the Beverly Hills home where the killings took place.<\/p>\n

Australian Christian Hannah, who was born almost two decades after the double murders, made sure the home was a stop on his tour of celebrity hotspots, because of his fascination with the Netflix show.<\/p>\n

“It’s really awesome seeing it in person,” he told AFP last week.<\/p>\n

“It’s just because you see it on TV and you see it in person, just feels really cool.”<\/p>\n

pr-hg\/amz\/jgc<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Erik Menendez (L) and his brother Lyle (R) are trying a three-pronged bid to get out of life sentences<\/p>\n

-VINCE BUCCI
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

Demand for seats in the public gallery at the trial is so high that court officials organized a lottery<\/p>\n

-Robyn Beck
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

Nick Bonanno, a high school friend of Erik Menendez, holds a high school photograph of Erik outside of the Van Nuys West Courthouse<\/p>\n

-Robyn Beck
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

The Beverly Hills mansion where the killings took place is a regular stop on the celebrity tourist trail in Los Angeles<\/p>\n

-DAVID SWANSON
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Family of Lyle and Erik Menendez told a judge Monday they want the men freed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}