The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said in a court filing Friday there were no legitimate reasons to remove the office from its role in the resentencing hearings for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who have been pushing to have their life-without-parole sentences for murdering their parents reduced.
"The defense has decided to sidestep the central issue of resentencing and instead take the drastic and desperate step of attempting to recuse the entire Office of the Los Angeles County District Attorney," the response said.
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WATCH HEREThe brothers' lead defense attorney, Mark Geragos, demanded the district attorney's removal after raising several issues that Geragos viewed as proof the elected DA Nathan Hochman and all of his employees were too conflicted or biased to handle the resentencing hearing fairly.
"The entire defense argument over recusal boils down to the defense not being happy with the current District Attorney's position on resentencing," case prosecutors Habib Balian, Ethan Milius and Seth Carmack wrote in the filing.
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SIGN UP "This desperate argument may work in a press interview but fails in a court of law based on an adversarial system of justice," they said.
LA Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic is scheduled to hear Geragos' request at a hearing May 9.
The back-and-forth between the district attorney's office and the defense followed a contentious court proceeding last month at which Los Angeles County prosecutors aggressively argued against resentencing for the brothers, who are serving life sentences without parole after two murder trials three decades ago. The judge decided to move ahead with the resentencing process, despite assertions from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office that the brothers killed Jose and Kitty Menendez for a multimillion-dollar inheritance and have not admitted to lies during their trials nor taken complete responsibility for the crime.
Defense attorneys claim the brothers acted in self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father.
Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, Menendez were ages 18 and 21, respectively, when they were sentenced in a crime that commanded the public's attention, which was renewed with the release of the Netflix drama "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" and the documentary "The Menendez Brothers," released in the fall of 2024.
