Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman says Erik and Lyle Menendez needed to 'fess up to all their lies when talking to TMZ from prison.
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00:00We have heard and expect that Mark Garagos will ask the judge to change the conviction.
00:08What would your reaction be to that?
00:10He wants them to change the conviction to manslaughter, in which case they would get
00:15out immediately, having served the maximum for manslaughter in California.
00:20Your reaction to that would be if he does ask for that.
00:23Well, I think that that would do a, it'd be almost an insult to the jury.
00:29It'd be insult to the facts of the case.
00:31It'd be the insult to the memory of Kitty and Jose Menendez, that the premeditation, the
00:36deliberation, Mark Garagos is saying, judge, that doesn't matter.
00:41Divorce yourself from the facts and go ahead and be result driven and just let the Menendez's
00:46out.
00:47That's what the family wants as well.
00:49And I totally get it.
00:50If I'm a family member and I think that, you know, someone has served enough time, I'd want
00:55them out as well.
00:56But the DA's office, and I believe the judge and even the governor, are governed by the
01:01facts and the law.
01:03And if Mark Garagos wants to argue the most counterfactual position you can under these
01:10circumstances, I believe he will undermine his entire argument on why resentencing should
01:15take place.
01:17So it'll be very interesting to see whether or not Mark Garagos will adopt this extreme
01:22counterfactual argument and take the chance the judge is going to discredit his entire
01:28credibility in advocating any position because he's taking a position that is not even remotely
01:35grounded in the facts and the law.
01:36Aren't the two operative issues here, are they rehabilitated and do they pose a danger?
01:43And isn't that ultimately what the parole board is going to decide and then send it
01:50on to Gavin Newsom for his evaluation?
01:53I mean, aren't those really, at this point, we know about the murders, aren't those the
01:58two operative issues here?
02:00Yes.
02:00And I'll tell you, though, where insight plays a role in that.
02:04While insight is not a separate factor in the resentencing statute, the California Supreme
02:09Court has said explicitly that if one has not fully accepted responsibility for all their
02:16criminal actions and has tried to minimize them, in this case, these two brothers have
02:22perpetrated for over 30 years the lie that the reason that they shot their parents was
02:28basically for self-defense.
02:29They then tried to concoct additional lies about their father being a violent rapist and
02:34their mother being a poisoner.
02:36And, Harvey, you gave them the opportunity in their most recent interviews to finally
02:41come clean and say, look, we've been lying about this the whole time, just by the way
02:47like we lied when we said we never did the murders themselves and blamed the mafia.
02:52They could have come clean in your prison interview, and then they could have done it sincerely,
02:57unequivocally, and said to the judge, and said to the public, and said to the parole board
03:01and the governor, look, we get it, we are now making a clean breast of all the criminal
03:08actions and the lies we have told, look at our good rehabilitation and prison judge, look
03:14at our good rehabilitation, parole board, Governor Newsom, and let us out.
03:20And you, Harvey, gave them the greatest opportunity to go ahead and finally come abreast and come
03:27clean.
03:28With all their crimes, with all their lies, they failed to do it.
03:32I don't know why they failed, but they failed to do it.
03:34And maybe they'll come clean in the future, and at that point, resentencing and rehabilitation
03:40might finally be realized.