Prosecutors Seek Only One Jury in Menendez Retrial

Prosecutors have disclosed that they want to try both Lyle and Eric Menendez before one jury and do not intend to call their star witness from the first trial.

In a lengthy legal brief filed Monday by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, they disclosed tidbits of new evidence and said they do not intend to call Beverly Hills psychologist L. Jerome Oziel as a witness in the retrial.

The only reason to call Oziel, prosecutors said, would be to explain how he made a Dec. 11, 1989, tape recording in which the brothers tell him what led them to kill their parents. The tape, prosecutors said, speaks for itself.

The 32-page legal brief marked the opening round of strategic sparring as the prosecution and the defense gear up for the retrial of Lyle, 26, and Erik, 23, charged with murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents, Jose Menendez, 45, and Kitty Menendez, 47.

The first trial ended in January when separate juries deadlocked between murder and lesser manslaughter charges.

Two juries heard the first trial because some evidence applied separately to either of the brothers. Prosecutors said in the legal papers that a single jury could sort it all out.

The brothers admit the slayings but contend that they killed in fear after years of abuse. Prosecutors contend that the brothers killed out of hatred and greed.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg has scheduled a June 27 hearing to set a new trial date. Defense attorneys are scheduled to file their tactical plan in a legal brief June 13.

Prosecutors made no mention in their brief of what happened in the first trial. Oziel testified that the brothers had confessed to him on Oct. 31 and Nov. 2, 1989, but was then hammered on cross-examination for nearly a week, mostly about an extramarital affair.

On the Dec. 11, 1989, tape the brothers maintain that they killed their mother because she was suicidal and their father because his infidelity had driven her to despair. The brothers never mention abuse or self-defense on the tape.

That tape, however, did not become available until late in the trial. After months of legal wrangling, Weisberg ruled that it could be played for jurors. Then, defense attorneys played it first.

In the legal brief filed Monday, prosecutors said they intend to play the tape early in the retrial.

Prosecutors also said they plan to pursue new evidence, among it the testimony of a friend who asked Erik Menendez why his application to UCLA was on the coffee table when the brothers burst into the TV room of the family’s Beverly Hills house and killed their parents.

According to the prosecution, the friend asked Erik Menendez: “Why would (Kitty Menendez) be filling out a college application if she was planning on killing you? How are you going to get out of that?”

The younger brother replied: “That’s a problem but we’re working on that.”