The Menendez Brothers

Like many people I'm sure, I came to this off the back off the recent Netflix drama 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story' and I wanted to know more on the factual side behind the case. While the latter was well made and entertaining (if that's the right word, when the details are considered), I wish I'd just gone straight to this as there's none of the keep you guessing ambiguity of the drama which given what's at stake and having now seen both, seems quite unfair to the brothers. There's nothing fancy here, it's a meat and potatoes crime documentary of the like we've all seen many times before. But it gets the facts across and conveys the injustice of the 2nd court case well.

I waited to watch this documentary instead of the Monsters series that came before it as I'm generally more fascinated to hear from the actual people involved in the case, rather than actors pretending they were there. This documentary is certainly intended to be more sympathetic to the brothers, however I still like the fact it uses real footage of the trial, the media reporting at the time, that you get to hear from actual jurors and the brothers themselves. You can go back and forth about what the documentary left out; those who don't believe the brothers will criticize it that it's too sympathetic to them, equally those who do believe them can point out to more testimony and evidence of their abuse that the documentary didn't show.

Regardless which side of the fence you come down on, I find it very difficult one can argue that their second trial allowed them a fair opportunity to put forward a defense. To not allow numerous testimony from family members, doctors, photos, letters etc that could potentially show how they were abused for years which is central to the defense's explanation of what influenced their actions that night feels incredibly prejudicial. Whether the jury then accepts this version of events is a separate matter, but surely the point of the judicial process is that they have the opportunity to hear the evidence for it. Certainly I think there was political pressure to not allow another acquittal of a high profile defendant for murder with OJ Simpson being acquitted just a week prior to much of the public's disgust. These two factors I think greatly taint their second trial and the inevitable verdict from it that they've now served 34 years for.

The prosecutor Pamela comes off as very unlikable towards the end as well. It's fine if she doesn't believe them, and while I agree TikTok in general is a stain on society, to facetiously joke you'd use a firearm in defense against "TikTok people" as you in the same breath rubbish the Menendez's defence of using a firearm against their alleged abuser is a staggering lack of self-awareness. She also dismisses the social media 'campaigns' for them to be released, which, youthful exuberance and folly aside I'm sure hold little legal grounds, but she does so by acting incredulous that that would make a mockery of the justice process. "Why don't we hold TikTok trials or a poll" she says with indignation, but apparently she's fine with a judge not admitting the majority of a defense's evidence and unfairly influencing the outcome of a trial.

I'm not sure how much legal basis there is for them to have another trial since they already had an appeal denied. I'm sure there are legal minds already exploring options with this case in the spotlight again, so the saga might yet continue in the coming years. Society today is certainly more acknowledging of sexual abuse victims, and how grooming and power dynamics affects how they react to their abuse. If you accept they were abused, and there's certainly much testimony and evidence to support it, then 34 years in jail from a tainted second trial in the 90s when abuse against boys/men was largely ignored feels like an injustice.

I came to this Netflix documentary about the Menendez brothers case, probably like a lot of other people, after viewing the same channel's recently broadcast controversial 9-part drama, released under the "Monsters" title. I personally couldn't remember anything about the case before I watched the series, however, what I think is pretty inarguable is that it was slanted in favour of the prosecution case, which eventually prevailed at a retrial, finding the brothers guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

This two-hour film however was very different. Using extensive recent audio-interviews with them, I believe there's equally little doubt that the film-makers believe that the two were indeed provoked by the alleged incestuous sexually abusive behaviour of their father, to shockingly shoot both him and his wife, their mother, while they watched TV in their palatial family home.

With access to many of the original participants in the case, including jurors from both trials, also witnesses and representatives for both the defence and the prosecution, including the original female prosecutor, this was highly provocative in the claims it seemed to make. The point is made that in the intervening thirty years, with society's acceptance of parental sexual abuse in particular by fathers on their own children, including their sons, coupled with the emergence of the "#MeToo" movement, that the siblings were incorrectly charged and subsequently sentenced to jail. The claim here is that they should have received the lesser sentence of manslaughter, which would have resulted in much shorter custodial sentences them both, meaning of course they would have long since been freed by now.

The point is also made that the pair likely caught the backlash of the DA Office's perception that the near-contemporary acquittal of OJ Simpson and before that also of the four policemen who beat up Rodney King, meant that they were determined to this time obtain a high-profile conviction with the notorious brothers fitting the bill. One other interesting fact is that on the original hung-jury, the 50/50 split amongst them was on a gender basis, with the six males voting guilty and the six females accepting the self-defence claim.

I thought from the TV series that I knew how I'd have voted if I'd been on either jury but this alternative counter-argument, did make me revisit my thoughts on the case.

That said, I do believe that being kept in jail for over 30 years is certainly long enough, even for the terrible crime they committed and tried to cover up and that I wouldn't argue if their soon-upcoming appeal is upheld and they are freed, as I believe is now probable.

Time has told and time will tell...

Solid documentary. It could have been a little less one sided. I understand from another documentary that there's some incriminating evidence than if it were purely self-defense (such as a recorded telephone conversation between Lyle and a friend).

We can't know for sure what happened behind closed doors in the Menendez family, I'm inclined to believe them.

In any case, what the documentary certainly achieves is that you will find the brothers more sympathetic than the first prosecutor (Pamela Bozanich), even if they were cold blooded killers.

Her behavior and attitude will infuriate you. She comes across as a typical narcissist. But perhaps because of her defensive behavior and certain things she says, you get the impression that somewhere she knows that she might have been wrong.

Her latest comments are ridiculous ("The only reason we're doing this special is because of the TikTok movement to free the Menendi" and "If that's how we're gonna try cases now, why don't we just, like, have a poll? You present the faces, everyone gets to vote on TikTok, and then we decide who gets to go home"). What is wrong with her to make such statements??

Finally, she threatens Tik Tok people who have a different opinion than herself by saying that she is heavily armed. Sounds like an aggressive toddler.

I just had to get this off my chest. Thank you.

I've known about this case for years, but recently watched the Monsters TV series based on the case, which is basically a lightly fictionalized docuseries.

This instead is a documentary, with footage of the real trial, and with the brothers' narration. I recommend watching this documentary after watching the Monsters TV series, to get a more complete picture of the dynamics.

In this documentary, they want you to be more inclined to believe the siblings' abuse, and they succeed at doing it. I can't say whether I believe in the abuse or not, there is evidence that it happened, and at the same time there is evidence that they lied and pretended about many things, one thing does not exclude the other. But one thing is certain, both in this documentary and in the Monsters series, the second trial was not done correctly, it was not carried out guaranteeing a fair and impartial trial, it was carried out starting a priori that the only possible output would be the life imprisonment.

The Menendez brothers killed two people, and for this they deserve to serve a long sentence, but they do not deserve to be deprived of the right to a fair trial.

If their trial had taken place today, they would probably have already finished serving their sentence.