Menendez Brothers

[BoSoxGal]

Will be getting resentenced, and possibly home for Thanksgiving.

What do you think, Plan B?

Honestly I think serving 30+ years is enough after eliminating a monstrous child rapist and his knowing enabler from the planet.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Their defense was that their parents abused them - IMO this defense was cooked up by their legal team as an after-the-fact justification for routine $$$$$ motivated murders. There was no separate evidence that this abuse ever took place.

[Crackpot]

That’s just the point evidence has come to light that the claims pre date the murder or the murder plot.

[BoSoxGal]

Their defense was that their parents abused them - IMO this defense was cooked up by their legal team as an after-the-fact justification for routine $$$$$ motivated murders. There was no separate evidence that this abuse ever took place.

There IS evidence of the abuse and nearly the whole extended family who knew Jose the rapist believes them. He was a brute to the entire family besides raping his sons for years and years, and he is accused of raping a boy member of a band his record company represented as well - so he didn’t just do incest which some folks don’t care too much about, he also raped other people’s kids.

The Menendez trials were the beginning of Court TV. They are available to watch online. I challenge you to go and watch the testimony of those two young men describing the abuse they endured at the hands of their savage rapist father and come back here and call them liars. What I will tell you then is that you obviously have no experience speaking to children who have been raped by their parents - I have far too much such experience, and I believe those boys entirely. You can’t act that kind of raw humiliation on the witness stand.

I will also add that there have been cases recently where a family member has killed a child rapist they found raping their child relative. In more than one instance such killings have not been charged at all by prosecutors. It seems hypocrisy to suggest that the only time it can be considered defense of another to kill a child rapist is when the rapist’s penis is still inside or just recently exited the child’s anus or vagina. Erik and Lyle Menendez engaged in imperfect self defense and should never have been found guilty of first degree murder. The first jury would not convict them and in the second trial the court improperly refused to let them present their defense of brutal rape and systematic child abuse, despite corroborating testimony by relatives. It was a miscarriage of justice. They have been model prisoners and have dedicated their prison lives to helping others to heal from trauma. They pose no threat to society.

Child abusers of all kinds are the scourge of society and their actions are the root of much evil in the world. I’m sure this twist will stoke fear and also anger in the hearts of many parents out there - the very notion that children are not objects to be used as a parent wishes, but autonomous beings with the right to defend themselves from sick twisted violent ‘parenting.’

[ex-khobar Andy]

You've obviously followed this case much more closely than I have and my recollection is from the original trial 30-odd years ago and there did not seem to be any evidence then that the allegations of abuse were anything other than a defense invention.

I have absolutely no quarrel with where we are now - they have been granted a resentencing which in effect means that they can apply for parole and get out soon. They have been model prisoners. As Mark Geragos said, 35 years is enough. He did not - at least in the extended sound bite I saw (3+ minutes on YouTube) - mention the abuse/incest and 35 years is probably a lot more than most murderers get these days.

You say that you have extensive experience of victim testimony and I don't for a second doubt that. I have none. But let's not make the logical error of stating that because such behavior exists (it does) and because their testimony was consistent with that of a real victim (I assume that it was) ergo they must be victims. Post hoc is not always propter hoc.

If any juries would be sympathetic to abuse victims, California juries are probably at the top of that tree. They went on trial twice and the juries did not buy the 'abusive parents who got what was coming to them' defense.

[MajGenl.Meade]

n the second trial the court improperly refused to let them present their defense of brutal rape and systematic child abuse, despite corroborating testimony by relatives.

That's not a 100% fact. The judge limited what they could present. He did not "refuse to let them". That's all I'm saying - I don't know nor have an opinion as to whether they were abused or not, neither as to whether they should or should not be freed.

I am glad they did not get the death penalty. I don't mind them being released, even though the man most responsible for the decision is facing an election fight and needs the cred.

I do think that at 18 and 21 years of age they could have made a different decision and that money was an overwhelming influence to murder and coverup, whether they were abused or not.

And nothing of what I think matters a hill o' beans

[BoSoxGal]

I do think that at 18 and 21 years of age they could have made a different decision and that money was an overwhelming influence to murder and coverup, whether they were abused or not.

I think this is a knee jerk reaction of many people, particularly those with no experience of parental abuse. As somebody who endured serious psychological and physical abuse from the time I was in the womb and until I estranged from my parents at age 30, and who has worked for decades with victims of childhood abuse, and who has read extensively in the psychiatric literature on the subject, I know and understand the influence that abusive parents have on their children beyond the 'magic' age of 18.

Both science and the law recognize that the human brain doesn't fully develop by this legal age of majority at 18, and a person's ability to exercise independent thinking and autonomous choice all of a sudden after decades of conditioning and abuse is rather limited. Many people do not fully grapple with the childhood abuse they endured until they are much older, in fact. And there are many cases of poor and middle class kids who killed abusive parents - it is sad that the Menendez family was rich and thus created in so many people's minds the knee jerk reaction that they killed their parents for money.

I recently rewatched the Dateline program on the FLDS and I would recommend it to people who don't understand why kids who grow up physically abused and psychologically manipulated can't 'just walk away' on their 18th birthdays, no matter anything about financial support from the parents. It is so much more complicated than that, and the only villains are the adults who abuse children.