Judge Moves to Block Menendez Abuse Experts

The judge in the second murder trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez moved Monday to block all expert testimony on the “abuse excuse” defense, a decision that could profoundly affect the direction of the case.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg questioned whether defense lawyers were entitled to call experts who would say the brothers were “battered children” akin to a beaten spouse. He said he was not convinced that there are legal grounds in California to permit such testimony.

But Weisberg also stressed that his ruling--which, if it stands, would be a significant victory for prosecutors and almost certainly reshape the course of the case--was far from final.

The judge said defense lawyers are entitled to a hearing to argue that such testimony can satisfy the highly technical rules of evidence. He said he would call the lawyers back to court Wednesday to begin planning the hearing--amid concern that such a hearing poses a threat to the scheduled June 12 start of the retrial.

Lyle Menendez, 27, and Erik Menendez, 24, are charged with first-degree murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.

During their first trial, the brothers admitted killing their parents but said they did so in fear for their own lives after years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

Prosecutors countered that the brothers killed out of hatred and greed.

The first trial, which lasted six months, ended in January, 1994, when separate juries--one for each brother--deadlocked between murder and lesser manslaughter charges.

At that trial, the defense case was designed to build to the brothers’ climactic testimony, and then to move immediately to explanations for their conduct, offered by about half a dozen mental health experts.

In court Monday, Erik’s defense lawyer, Leslie Abramson, said that strategy was at the “core” of the brothers’ case.

The defense case last time began with anecdotes from teachers, coaches, relatives and friends about life in the Menendez household--in all, nearly three dozen witnesses, followed by the testimony of the brothers themselves.

Then came the mental health experts. They testified that a lifetime of fear had left the brothers prone to impulse.

Prosecutors at the first trial, led by Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Bozanich, ridiculed the testimony of the mental health experts and opted not to raise a wholesale objection to the witnesses.

That tactic was based on a 1991 state law that authorized expert testimony in cases involving a claim of “battered-woman syndrome.” Bozanich reasoned that it would be fruitless to object in a case in which sons were claiming parental abuse.

After the first trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Conn took over for Bozanich. He then took a different tack, objecting vigorously to the mental health experts.

In several legal briefs filed over recent months and again in court Monday, Conn argued that the 1991 law explicitly applies to expert testimony on battered women only--not abused children.

If the Legislature had wanted to include children, Conn said, it could have. Since it did not, he argued, Weisberg’s hands were tied.

“What they are trying to do is take this battered-woman syndrome . . . and expand upon it, create a new syndrome in this courtroom,” Conn said of the defense.

He then dismissed it as “more of the same three-card monte.”

Outside court, he said the defense succeeded in the first trial in “effectively putting the parents on trial,” adding, “We want the case to be decided on the facts surrounding the circumstances of the murder, (to) put the defendants on trial rather than the parents on trial.”

In court, Abramson countered that the brothers should be given “wide latitude” to put on a defense.

And, she noted, the U.S. Constitution affords equal protection of the laws. “Perhaps the Legislature wants to discriminate against children,” she said. “I don’t think the Constitution does.”

She added: “I don’t think any court could run the risk of excluding this evidence in a homicide trial.”

But Weisberg said there was nothing in California law that gave him authority to permit such expert testimony--even though, because of Bozanich’s tactics, jurors at the first trial heard several such specialists.

“This is a unique situation,” Weisberg said.

But he ruled that the defense “will not be able to put on the (abuse expert) evidence and will not be able to refer to it in opening statements unless (the prosecution) objections are resolved.”

At that, he called for a hearing on the issue, but did not set a date.

After Monday’s session, Abramson downplayed the import of Weisberg’s ruling, saying she believed the judge was “just trying to dot all his i’s and cross all his t’s.”

“I think we’ll come out exactly at the same place we began,” she said.