California Attorney General Rob Bonta is pushing back against Erik and Lyle Menendez’s defense team’s request to remove the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office from their resentencing case.
The brothers’ attorneys have argued that the DA’s office has shown bias against them and violated Marsy’s Law against their family.
In a 22-page opposition filed this week, the AG’s office noted that the Menendez defense attorneys have failed to present evidence that meets the “stringent standards” for an office-wide recusal of the DA, stating that each claim fell short of any merit.
“First, the transfer of two members of his Office who previously supported resentencing is not sufficient to establish a disabling, office-wide conflict of interest. Second, even if Ms. Cady’s prior representation of Kitty Menendez’s brother could present a potential conflict, the District Attorney’s Office has walled her off from this matter,” the filing read.
“As such, defendants have failed to identify a disqualifying conflict that demonstrates a reasonable possibility that the assigned prosecutors may not exercise discretionary functions in an evenhanded manner, nor have they established that any alleged conflict is so grave as to render it more likely than not they will not receive unfair treatment if the case continues to be handled by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,” – California Attorney General’s Office
Last week, the DA’s office filed it’s own opposition, calling the move a “drastic and desperate step.”
LA DA REJECTS MENENDEZ BROTHERS’ RECUSAL PUSH IN RESENTENCING, CALLS IT A ‘DRASTIC AND DESPERATE STEP’
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman filed the response on Friday, arguing that the Menendez brothers are trying to force a recusal simply because they’re unhappy with the district attorney’s overall stance on resentencing.
“In the opposition, the District Attorney’s Office has argued that in a ‘drastic and desperate step,’ the defense has decided to ‘sidestep the central issue of resentencing’ and present an argument ‘devoid of merit’ to recuse the entire District Attorney’s Office,” Hochman said. “The entire defense argument over recusal boils down to the defense not being happy with the current District Attorney’s position on resentencing. While this desperate argument may work in a press interview, it fails in a court of law based on an adversarial system of justice.”
Attorney Mark Geragos, who represents the Menendez brothers, wrote in an April 25 motion that Hochman should recuse himself because of a “conflict of interest.” In that filing, Geragos wrote that Hochman “has a very different view” on resentencing.
“In the prosecution’s view, there was no sexual abuse at all. Resentencing is not appropriate because although defendants have admitted the shooting for decades, they continue to maintain (as they have since trial) that they had been sexually abused since they were children,” Geragos wrote. “Under the District Attorney’s view, there can be no rehabilitation unless defendants not only admit the shooting, but disclaim the corroborated history of sexual abuse which caused the first juries to reach verdicts evenly split between murder and manslaughter.”
IF MENENDEZ BROTHERS ADMIT TO ‘LIES,’ LOS ANGELES DA MAY RECONSIDER RESENTENCING MOTION TO FREE THEM: REPORT
“Because the record shows a conflict that renders it unlikely Erik and Lyle can receive a fair resentencing hearing, recusal is proper,” Geragos added.
The Menendez brothers’ motion for Hochman’s recusal focuses on an attorney that Hochman recently hired. After former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon announced he was considering a resentencing request from the Menendez brothers, 20 family members met with deputy district attorneys Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford and discussed their support for resentencing.
One family member, however, objected to the resentencing and filed an amicus brief in opposition through his attorney, Kathleen Cady.
When Hochman won his election against Gascon, Geragos claimed that Theberge and Lunsford were intentionally reassigned because they were viewed as sympathetic to the Menendez brothers. Geragos also claimed that Hochman hired Cady, the attorney who represented the only Menendez family member against resentencing, to lead the district attorney’s Office of Victims’ Services.
Hochman reportedly has a list of 20 lies the Menendez brothers have told over the last 30 years since their parents’ murders and previously told ABC News that he would consider resentencing if both brothers “sincerely and unequivocally admit, for the first time in over 30 years, the full range of their criminal activity and all the lies that they have told about it.”
TIMELINE OF THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS’ MURDER CASE
The Menendez brothers and their supporters have been pushing for a resentencing hearing, saying the brothers were unfairly convicted to life in prison in 1996 for murdering their two parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home in 1989.
Their first trial ended in a mistrial, when jurors couldn’t agree on their fate. After a second trial in the mid-1990s, in which some of their evidence about the alleged sexual abuse was excluded, jurors agreed with prosecutors that their motive was greed.
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If the judge decides to resentence the Menendez brothers, it will then be up to the state parole board to consider their release.
A hearing is scheduled for Friday, where Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic will preside.
They are already scheduled to appear before the board on June 13 as part of a comprehensive risk assessment report ordered by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is considering the brothers’ clemency request – a separate potential path out of prison.
Fox News Digital’s Audrey Conklin and Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to stepheny.price@fox.com
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