
In Menendez Brothers' Case, a Reckoning With the 1990s
After Lyle and Erik Menendez were resentenced on Tuesday, paving the way for their possible release after more than three decades in prison, one of the first things their lawyer, Mark J. Geragos, did was make a phone call.
Leslie Abramson, the brothers' defense attorney at their trials in the 1990s who found herself parodied on 'Saturday Night Live,' had in recent years warned Mr. Geragos that his efforts to free the brothers were doomed, in spite of the groundswell of support on social media.
'No amount of TikTokers,' he recalled Ms. Abramson telling him, 'was ever going to change anything.'
Facing the bank of television cameras staking out the courthouse, Mr. Geragos told reporters he had just left a message for his old friend.
'And so, Leslie, I will tell you it's a whole different world we live in now,' he said. He continued, 'We have evolved. This is not the '90s anymore.'
Indeed, over the last many months, the culture and politics of 1990s America seemed as much under the legal microscope as the horrific details of the Menendez brothers' crimes and what witnesses described as the exemplary lives they led in prison ever since.
At times, putting that decade on trial felt like a legal strategy by the brothers' lawyers. In court, Mr. Geragos often invoked the criminal justice policies of the era — three-strikes laws, punitive long sentences and a rising prison population — to argue that under today's mores the brothers merited a second chance. During his closing argument at Tuesday's hearing, Mr. Geragos described the time as a 'crazy, collective, lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key mentality we had.'
When the brothers stormed into the den of their family's Beverly Hills mansion in the summer of 1989 and shotgunned their parents to death, Los Angeles was on the cusp of a tumultuous era. By the time the brothers went on trial for the first time, in 1993, the city was still reeling from the deadly riots that followed the acquittal of the police officers in the Rodney King case.
The first trial was one of the first to be televised gavel to gavel to a national audience and foreshadowed the public's obsession with the O.J. Simpson trial, and the explosion of true-crime programming today. The brothers were tried together but each with their own juries, which heard the brothers' assertions that they had been molested by their father and had killed out of fear. Neither jury could reach a verdict, so a mistrial was declared.
By the time their second trial began, just after the acquittal of Mr. Simpson in 1995, the judge changed the rules, banning cameras in the courtroom and limiting testimony about sexual abuse. The changes were seen at the time as a reaction to the acquittals of Mr. Simpson and the officers in the Rodney King case, which had embarrassed law enforcement officials. (Years later a federal appeals court judge suggested that the rules were unfairly changed to improve the chances of a conviction.)
Without being able to consider a lesser charge of manslaughter, as the jurors in the first trial could, the brothers were convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole.
'It was clear politics had a major impact on the second trial,' said Robert Rand, who has covered the case since 1989 and has written the book, 'The Menendez Murders.' 'Because the D.A.'s office had suffered a string of major high-profile case defeats.'
How popular culture treated the story, regularly mocking the brothers as spoiled kids who invented the claims of sexual abuse and killed for their inheritance, regularly came up in court during the resentencing process.
'It has been a relentless examination of our family in the public eye,' said Anamaria Baralt, a cousin who testified on the Menendez brothers' behalf and spoke about their being 'the butt of every joke' on 'Saturday Night Live' and other late-night shows in the 1990s. 'It has been a nightmare.'
Another cousin, Tamara Lucero Goodell, said the vilification of late-night talk show hosts, like Jay Leno, left her 'incredibly private' and 'closed off.'
Mr. Rand said he was one of the few reporters at the time who took the sexual abuse claims seriously. 'I was dating another reporter who was covering the case, and she would tell me that the other reporters covering the trial were ridiculing me behind my back because I was going on Donahue and Oprah and these '90s TV shows and saying I believed Lyle and Erik Menendez,' he said.
Today, the media landscape looks very different, and the brothers have arguably benefited from that new landscape. Two shows on Netflix last year helped inject momentum into a slow-moving legal process, and new interest in the brothers' fate was fueled by campaigns on TikTok and other social media by younger people who felt the brothers were mistreated in the 1990s.
Last fall, George Gascón, then the district attorney of Los Angeles, filed a petition asking a court to resentence the brothers. But Mr. Gascón, who had come into office promising to unwind many of the policies of the 1990s by focusing on rehabilitation and less punitive sentences, lost his re-election bid to Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor.
Mr. Hochman is a more traditional prosecutor, emphasizing the rights of victims and taking a tougher line on sentencing. He came out against the resentencing of the brothers, saying they had not demonstrated 'full insight' into their crimes.
In court, Mr. Geragos has called the prosecutors ''90s Neanderthals.' In an interview with NewsNation, he said that Mr. Hochman 'was elected because the '90s were calling, and they wanted their D.A.'s office back.'
One of the witnesses who testified in support of resentencing was Jonathan Colby, a retired judge from Florida who has worked with the brothers inside prison training puppies to work with wounded combat veterans and autistic children. Mr. Colby said that, as a judge overseeing criminal cases in the 1990s, he was a law-and-order judge who almost always imposed the toughest sentence possible. 'Unfortunately, I was proud of that,' he said.
He said that his association with the brothers changed his mind about the role of prison, and hoped that, if they were to be released, he could work with them to educate judges about the possibilities of rehabilitation. 'I never thought prisons were capable, or prisoners were capable, of rehabilitating themselves,' he said.
After California's prisons became so overcrowded during the 1990s, a U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the state to reduce its inmate count led to a series of legislative reforms, including the resentencing law that allowed the brothers to have their case reconsidered in court.
When the brothers said they had killed because they had been sexually abused by their father, prosecutors and some in the media treated the claims with skepticism. (At trial a prosecutor said, 'Men cannot be raped since they lack the necessary equipment to actually be raped.')
'If they were the Menendez sisters they wouldn't be sitting here,' Mr. Geragos said in court, pointing to the brothers who appeared on a screen from prison, wearing blue jumpsuits.
When Lyle Menendez arrived in state prison in 1996 after his conviction, he said that one of the things that boosted his spirits during that dark time was the number of sexual abuse victims who sent him letters.
'I received a lot of ridicule in the '90s about it but also a lot of support, and a lot of victims reaching out, appreciating that, and finding their voice through mine,' Lyle Menendez said on a recent podcast interview with TMZ.
Last fall, as efforts to free the brothers gathered momentum following the release of a Netflix series from the producer Ryan Murphy, Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in, saying on his podcast, 'I think our parents would remember Manson as an indelible thing. But for us, I think it was O.J. and the Menendez brothers, which were so much a part of the narrative of our lives.'
After Judge Michael V. Jesic said on Tuesday that he would reduce the brothers' sentences, making them immediately eligible for parole, and that the case was now in the hands of the governor. Governor Newsom has said he would also consider clemency.
'No doubt what Ryan Murphy did with this series really lit things up,' Mr. Newsom said on his podcast last year. 'I think social media has lit things up. I don't know about you, but I'll tell you, I can't even tell you how many times my kids online have said, 'Hey, what's going on with the Menendez brothers?''

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Miami Herald
4 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Does Tom Selleck make you want to get a reverse mortgage?
In a billion-dollar ad campaign, Dan Levy and Heidi Gardner travel around the country collecting local data for the listing portal, with the catch line 'We've done your homework.' It's the largest real estate ad buy in history, designed to draw would-be homebuyers to the site. But the Emmy-winning Levy and 'Saturday Night Live' cast member Gardner are hardly the first celebrities to shill in the real estate sector. Years ago, John Wayne had a side job as a spokesman for Great Western, one of the country's largest mortgage lenders at the time. When 'Duke' died in 1979, the gig was taken over by actor Dennis Weaver of 'Gunsmoke' fame. Both actors are gone now, as is the once-big California savings bank. But many others followed in their wake. Elizabeth Banks was once the face of a rival. And who can forget the long list of actors representing the reverse mortgage business? Right now, the frontman is Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor Tom Selleck. But before him came actor-turned-Senator Fred Thompson, Henry 'the Fonz' Winkler, Robert Wagner and Jerry Orbach. A spokesperson doesn't necessarily need to be super famous, but they should at least be recognizable. Take Peter Koch, who once did ads for buyer-agent matching service HomeLight. He's a former NFL player who has appeared in numerous movies and TV shows. When you see him, you know him, but you're not sure where from. There are reasons companies pay to have someone like Selleck or Wayne endorse them. Celebrities can give a product or brand instant credibility, not to mention increased publicity. In the long run, according to a 2016 Forbes article, these endorsements 'encourage more and more customers to find out more about the business their favorite celebrity happens to be supporting.' Forbes cites Social Media Week to claim that one endorsement by a famous actor or sports star can increase sales by about 4%. But companies must choose the right personality. The wrong choice can backfire — if not now, then perhaps down the road. For instance, comedian Bill Cosby was once considered a bankable, believable spokesman. He hawked Jell-O, Coca-Cola and numerous other products before being convicted of sex crimes. O.J. Simpson shilled for Hertz and Lance Armstrong pitched for Subaru before they each fell from grace. Or consider the former PGA golfers who lost sponsorships after joining the Saudi Arabia-sponsored LIV Golf tour. Rocket Mortgage dropped Bryson DeChambeau after he joined LIV. Similarly, RBC, Canada's largest bank, cut ties with Dustin Johnson and Graeme McDowell. Rocket, one of the nation's largest lenders, is often credited with being the first in the mortgage sector to recognize the value of partnering with sports teams. In 2019, the company created the first-ever PGA tour event in its Detroit hometown. And now it is so entwined with the industry that the Rocket name is practically ubiquitous in the sports world. In addition to hosting the Motor City event, Rocket is an official partner of the PGA; it also has deals with NFL teams, the World Pro Ski Tour, and dozens of college football and basketball programs. Rocket's founder, Dan Gilbert, owns the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA, as well as other sports franchises. These connections are undoubtedly part of the reason Rocket topped the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter two years in a row. But other big-name lenders link their names with sports teams, too. Ruoff Mortgage, which is licensed to originate loans in 45 states, has a multiyear partnership with NASCAR. And Guaranteed Rate is the official mortgage partner of the National Hockey League, as well as a backer of professional rugby teams and bass fishing events. Firms sometimes support smaller local teams, too. For the same reason that a large, national outfit pays big money for the naming rights to a professional team's stadium — think LoanDepot Park and the Miami Marlins, among others — they might also put their name on a minor league field, or perhaps just a fence surrounding a sandlot. In Pepperell, Massachusetts, for example, the local Mortgage Network office sponsored the town's youth baseball and softball programs. It's an affordable investment that lets people know the company supports the town and its kids. And when the need for a mortgage arises, the hope is that Mortgage Network will be top-of-mind. Sports marketing is appealing for the housing industry, especially mortgage companies, for the same reasons that advertisers seek celebrity endorsements: A connection to a team brings instant recognition and credibility. We support the team, the thinking goes, so the team's fans will support us. Of course, most entities don't have the big bucks to spend that Rocket does. But there are numerous opportunities at sports' lower levels — from youth sports to the minor leagues to local marathons to college events. Lew Sichelman has been covering real estate for more than 50 years. He is a regular contributor to numerous shelter magazines and housing and housing-finance industry publications. Readers can contact him at lsichelman@
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
'I call it a rebellion': Maxine Waters' history of enflaming crowds, from Rodney King to today
Eighteen-term Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters resurfaced in the news after several run-ins with federal authorities during the ongoing illegal immigration riots in California, just as her House tenure began amid prior Angeleno unrest. In 1992, as she was finishing her first term in Congress, the not-guilty verdict against White LAPD officers seen beating a Black motorist named Rodney King sparked a similar conflagration in Los Angeles, and Waters was in the midst of it then as well. The riots greatly affected her South Los Angeles district, and Waters was quoted at the time as appearing to downplay the violence not as a "riot" but as "just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason." "I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion," she said, according to the Los Angeles Times. Maxine Waters Torched By Feds For 'Taunting' Guardsmen And 'Spewing Lies' About Riots, Trying To Enter Jail Waters had joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in trying to convince the Justice Department to file civil rights charges against the acquitted officers, blaming the rioting on Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Daryl Gates and President George H.W. Bush, according to famed journalist Robert Novak. Read On The Fox News App When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., attempted to have Waters expelled from Congress in 2021 for "inciting violence and terrorism," the Democrat claimed some of her past remarks were taken out of context. "I am not worried that they're going to continue to distort what I say," she told The Grio after Greene led her resolution with Waters' Rodney King-era statements. Greene said Waters violated House Rule 23's clause regarding conduct by members "at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House." At a 2007 anti-war protest, Waters declared she was "not afraid of George Bush" and also pledged to "get rid of" then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. She later drew the ire of Greene and other Republicans when she told an LGBTQ gala, "I will go and take out Trump tonight." Defenders said she was speaking rhetorically and politically and not threatening the mogul. Later in Trump's first administration, Waters was filmed on a California street corner shouting at supportive demonstrators and instructing them to be disruptive toward Trump allies. Maxine Waters Taunts Armed Agents After Feds Slam Door On Her During La Riots: 'You Better Shoot Straight' "If you see anybody … in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out, and you create a crowd, and you push back on them. And you tell them that they are not welcome." She later said she did not physically threaten Trump supporters, though then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had earlier been run out of a Lexington, Va., restaurant and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was accosted at a Washington, D.C., eatery. In April 2021, Waters rallied in Brooklyn Center, Minn., while ex-Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin was on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Waters was recorded telling protesters to "stay" in the street and warned that if the jury delivered a not-guilty verdict, "We cannot go away … we've got to get more confrontational." The comments caught the attention of trial Judge Peter Cahill, suggesting the comments could lead to a defense appeal and also disrespected the judicial branch. Waters later pushed back on some characterizations, saying, "I am nonviolent. I talk about confronting the justice system. … I'm talking about speaking up." In February, Waters appeared in front of the Department of Education building in Washington along with other House Democrats. A security guard was confronted as lawmakers tried to gain entry to voice concerns about Secretary Linda McMahon's downsizing plans. This week, while riots again raged in Los Angeles, Waters hurried toward a group of National Guardsmen entering the plywood-covered door of the Metropolitan Detention Center. "I just came to use my congressional authority to check on David Huerta," she said, referring to the SEIU union leader arrested during an immigration raid. A Guardsman told Waters to contact "public affairs" and slammed the door in her face. She was later seen asking armed Guardsmen if they planned to shoot her, why they were there and that the conflict was President Donald Trump's fault. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital after that incident that instead of "taunting" Guardsmen, Waters should have been trying to assuage the unrest. While some of her recent Republican challengers, like Joe Collins and Omar Navarro, have received hefty donations from around the country due to her polarizing comments, the 86-year-old has been re-elected with typically 70% of the vote. Fox News Digital reached out to Waters for comment but did not immediately hear back. Fox News' Leonard Balducci contributed to this article source: 'I call it a rebellion': Maxine Waters' history of enflaming crowds, from Rodney King to today
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
A repeat of Rodney King? Local leaders say L.A.'s latest unrest is nothing like 1992
The clashes between National Guard troops, police and protesters in recent days have evoked memories for some Angelenos of the deadly riots that erupted after LAPD officers were acquitted of brutally assaulting Black motorist Rodney King in 1992. But leaders who were involved in dealing with the uprising more than three decades ago say what has unfolded with President Trump's deployment of soldiers to Los Angeles and surrounding communities bears no resemblance to the coordinated response that took place then. 'It's not even close,' said former LAPD chief and city councilman Bernard Parks, who was a deputy chief in the police department during the 1992 unrest. 'You get a sense that this is all theatrics, and it is really trying to show a bad light on Los Angeles, as though people are overwhelmed." The chaos of 1992 unfolded after four LAPD officers who were videotaped beating King the prior year were not convicted. It took place at a time of deep distrust and animosity between minority communities and the city's police department. Federal troops and California National Guard units joined forces with local law enforcement officers to quell the turmoil, but not without harrowing results. More than 60 people were killed, thousands were injured and arrested, and there was property damage that some estimate exceeded $1 billion. What has played out recently on the city's streets is significantly more limited in scope, Mayor Karen Bass said. 'There was massive civil unrest [then]. Nothing like that is happening here,' Bass said on CNN on Sunday. 'So there is no need for there to be federal troops on our ground right now.' As of Wednesday evening, several hundred people had been arrested or detained because of their alleged actions during the protests, or taken into custody by federal officials because of their immigration status. On Tuesday, after the 101 Freeway was blocked by protesters, buildings in downtown Los Angeles were vandalized and businesses ransacked, Bass imposed a curfew in the city's civic core from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. that is expected to last several days. Read more: Bass enacts curfew in downtown L.A. to stem chaotic protests Zev Yaroslavsky, who served on the City Council in 1992, recalled that year as "one of the most significant, tragic events in the city's history." He described the riots as "a massive citywide uprising," with "thousands of people who were on the streets in various parts of the city, some burning down buildings." Yaroslavsky, who was later on the county Board of Supervisors for two decades, said that while some actions protesters are currently taking are inappropriate, the swath of Los Angeles impacted is a small sliver of a sprawling city. "All you're seeing is what is happening at 2nd and Alameda," he said. "There's a whole other city, a whole other county that is going about its business." Another significant distinction from 1992, according to people who lived through it, was the bipartisan coordination among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley requested assistance from then-President George H.W. Bush. That's a stark contrast from what started unfolding last week, when Trump's administration sent ICE agents to Los Angeles and federalized the state's National Guard without request by the state's governor, which last happened in the United States in the 1960s. "The biggest difference is that the governor requested federal help rather than having it imposed over his objection," said Dan Schnur, a political professor and veteran strategist who served as Wilson's communication's director in 1992. "There were some political tensions between state and local elected officials. But both the governor and the mayor set those aside very quickly, given the urgency of the situation." Loren Kaye, Wilson's cabinet secretary at the time, noted times have changed since then. "What I'm worried about is that there aren't the same incentives for resolving the contention in this situation as there were in '92," he said. Then, "everyone had incentives to resolve the violence and the issues. It's just different. The context is different." Parks, a Democrat, argued that the lack of federal communication with California and Los Angeles officials inflamed the situation by creating a lag in local law enforcement response that made the situation worse. 'You have spontaneous multiple events, which is the Achilles heel of any operation,' he said. 'It's not that they're ill-equipped, and it's not that they're under-deployed,' Parks said. 'It takes a minute. You just don't have a large number of people idly sitting there saying, okay, we are waiting for the next event, and particularly if it's spontaneous.' Protests can start peacefully, but those who wish to create chaos can use the moment to seek attention, such as by burning cars, Park said. The end result is images viewed by people across the country who don't realize how localized the protests and how limited the damage was in recent days. 'The visuals they show on TV are exactly what the folks in Washington want to be seen,' Parks said. On Monday, the president deployed hundreds of Marines from Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. State leaders have asked for a temporary restraining order blocking the military and state National Guard deployments, which is expected to be heard in federal court on Thursday. Read more: California asks court for restraining order to block Guard, U.S. Marine deployments in L.A. Trump, speaking to U.S. Army troops at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina on Tuesday, said that he deployed National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles 'to protect federal law enforcement from the attacks of a vicious and violent mob.' The president descried protesters as leftists pursuing a "foreign invasion" of the United States, bent on destroying the nation's sovereignty. 'If we didn't do it, there wouldn't be a Los Angeles," Trump said. "It would be burning today, just like their houses were burning a number of months ago." Newsom responded that the president was intentionally provoking protesters. 'Donald Trump's government isn't protecting our communities — they're traumatizing our communities,' Newsom said. 'And that seems to be the entire point.' Read more: Newsom, in California address, says Trump purposely 'fanned the flames' of L.A. protests Activists who witnessed the 1992 riots said the current turmoil, despite being much smaller and less violent, is viewed differently because of images and video seen around the world on social media as well as the plethora of cable outlets that didn't exist previously. "They keep looping the same damn video of a car burning. It gives the impression cars are burning everywhere, businesses are being looted everywhere," said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. Hutchinson, an activist from South L.A. who raised money to rebuild businesses during the 1992 riots, said he was concerned about the city's reputation. "L.A. is getting a bad name," he said. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.