Word: lyle
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...next day defense attorney Jill Lansing also tacked a picture on the board, this one showing the body of a prepubescent Lyle frontally naked from the neck down. She went on to describe a toxic environment where two depraved, vicious parents turned their sons into helpless prisoners and sexual playthings. Lansing recounted testimony of the brothers being punched, belt- whipped and molested by their parents. "You need to decide what was going on in Erik and Lyle Menendez's mind that night," she said, "before you can decide what kind of crime was committed...
...Judge Stanley Weisberg more than an hour to issue jury instructions on the subtle variations in mental state that distinguish a first-degree * murder from a second-degree offense, a voluntary manslaughter from an involuntary killing -- all-important gradations that may spell the difference between life and death for Lyle, 25, and Erik, 23, in the Aug. 20, 1989, slaying of their parents...
Weisberg could only hope that after 90 days of hearing about sex, lies and audiotapes, the jurors hadn't missed his most important instruction, one that went largely unstated. At no point did the judge inform Lyle's jury of the conditions that would win acquittal -- nor will he when he addresses Erik's jury this week. Weisberg ruled last week that the brothers Menendez could not argue "perfect self-defense," meaning that they had shot their parents out of a reasonable and honest belief that their own lives were in imminent danger. If the two juries are faithful...
...Bozanich cast the details of abuse as cool, calculated lies. She launched this portion of her argument with a reading from Hitler's Mein Kampf: "The great masses of the people . . . will more easily fall victims to a great lie than a small one." Bozanich then recapped the lies Lyle had told in the seven months prior to his arrest -- lies he had to own up to once his trial got under way. He lied to police investigators when he made up the tale of Mafia hit men, even as he had the presence of mind to remove incriminating shells...
More than a few of the brothers' stories faltered in the courtroom. Pisarcik, who has since broken up with Lyle, challenged the brothers' contention that the murder plan had begun on Aug. 15, when mother Kitty ripped Lyle's toupee from his head. The scene supposedly so shocked Erik that to assuage his brother's humiliation, the younger Menendez confessed to his sibling that he was being continually abused by their father. Lyle allegedly then began thinking of ways of saving his brother from Jose. Pisarcik testified, however, that Erik couldn't have been shocked by his brother's bald...