The California Attorney General has filed an opposition to a motion to disqualify the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office filed by attorneys for Erik and Lyle Menendez. The defense attorneys filed the motion on April 25, arguing that the actions of District Attorney Nathan Hochman and his deputies have demonstrated a personal bias against the brothers and a conflict of interest.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic is expected to rule on the motion on May 9.
Defense attorneys argue that Hochman has shown bias by hiring Kathleen Cady to lead his department’s Bureau of Victim Services after she represented the only Menendez family member who wanted the brothers to stay incarcerated. The defense further points out that Cady never reached out to any of the victim’s family members; that Hochman once posed for a photo with a group protesting the brothers’ resentencing; and that his office displayed graphic crime scene photos of Jose Menendez at an April 11 hearing without warning the victims’ family members.
“Erik and Lyle Menendez are entitled to a fair resentencing process. Jose and Kitty Menendez’s family members—regardless of what position they take as to resentencing—are all entitled to a fair sentencing process,” the defense said in the recusal motion. “The public is entitled to a process that appears fair.”
Erik and Lyle Menendez have served over 30 years in prison for murdering their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home in 1989 after years of alleged sexual abuse.
Hochman’s office filed an opposition to the recusal motion on May 2, claiming that their position on the brothers’ resentencing is not politically motivated and was taken after a thorough examination of the facts of the case.
“The defense has decided to sidestep the central issue of resentencing and instead take the drastic and desperate step of attempting to recuse the entire Office of the Los Angeles County District Attorney,” the opposition states.
The opposition filed by the Attorney General’s office states that Cady’s previous representation of Kitty Menendez’s brother could represent a conflict of interest, but that the DA has “walled her off” from the case. The recusal motion as such has not presented sufficient evidence to establish an officewide conflict of interest for the DA. The opposition further states that violating Marsy’s Law—a statute that protects victims’ privacy, which the defense alleges the DA violated by displaying the graphic crime scene photos—does not warrant the disqualification of the entire DA’s office.
“The defendants here confuse disagreement with a legally cognizable conflict of interest,” the Attorney General’s office states.
The brothers’ April 17 resentencing hearing came to a halt when Judge Jesic opted to continue it to allow him time to review a psychological assessment report of the brothers that had recently become available. Jesic will rule on May 9 whether the report will be admissible in court. No new date has been set yet for the resentencing hearing, in which the court could change the brothers’ sentencing to life with the possibility of parole and pave the way to their release.
Beyond the resentencing effort, the brothers will also appear in front of a state parole board in June, which will determine whether they pose any risk to the public, in another effort that could free them.
