Attorneys representing Erik and Lyle Menendez have withdrawn their request to disqualify Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman from overseeing the brothers’ resentencing case.
The motion was retracted during a morning court hearing at a Van Nuys courthouse.
Hochman, who opposes the brothers’ resentencing, last week filed an opposition to the recusal motion by attorneys for the Menendez brothers.
He called the efforts to remove him from the case a “drastic and desperate step” that is “devoid of merit.”
“Disagreeing with the opposing side’s position is not a conflict of interest, it is simply a disagreement,” it said.
The reason why the Menendez brothers’ attorneys pulled the recusal motion on Friday morning was not immediately clear.
Initially, the defense focused on Hochman’s actions and sought to have the entire case shifted from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. This would have potentially involved the state attorney general’s office stepping in.
This week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta supported Hochman by filing a motion. He noted that the defense hadn’t successfully shown there was a conflict of interest.
For Lyle and Erik Menendez, it’s hard to imagine a hearing more important to them in the past 30 years than the one later this week.
Before the recusal request was rescinded, a statement from the Menendez brothers’ family members said: “This has been a pattern of behavior. It is one thing to try to ignore our rights, but when you use every legal remedy to tilt the scales of justice, it becomes clear that there is more at play than overzealous advocacy.”
Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, previously said that such recusal requests are “almost never” granted.
“Defendants don’t usually get to pick their prosecutors,” she said. “Occasionally an individual prosecutor will be recused, but to recuse an entire office is very rare.”
Generally, it only happens if a prosecutor’s personal family member is involved or if the district attorney’s office received outside payment in a case, Levenson said.
The path to possible resentencing
The brothers were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home. The brothers were 18 and 21 at the time of the killings. Defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, while prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
Former L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón had opened the door to possible freedom for the brothers in October by requesting their sentences be reduced to 50 years with the possibility of parole. His office said the case would’ve been handled differently today due to modern understandings of sexual abuse and trauma, and that the brothers had rehabilitated during their 30 years in prison.
But current District Attorney Hochman has said the brothers have not taken full responsibility for their crimes because they have not admitted to lies told during their trials. The Menendez family and lawyers have been heavily critical of the way Hochman has handled the case.
During long-awaited resentencing hearings last month, attorneys engaged in a heated debate over whether material from risk assessments completed by the state parole board at the governor’s order should be admissible in court. The hearings were delayed, and the brothers’ lead attorney Mark Geragos said he would move to recuse Hochman from the case.
In a motion filed April 25, Geragos argued that Hochman’s bias against the brothers and mistreatment of the Menendez family posed a “genuine risk” the brothers would not receive a fair hearing.
The Menendez brothers are still waiting for the full results of a state parole board risk assessment ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. The final hearing, scheduled for June 13, will influence whether Newsom grants the brothers clemency.
The perspective of a new generation of people who weren’t even alive during the murders of Kitty and José Menendez shows just how much has changed in three and a half decades.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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