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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.

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Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,

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and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my

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experience as the brother of a murder victim to help

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other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book

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on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co

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administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with

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Kristin Dilly.

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Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,

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a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the

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social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway

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Murders Facebook page with my partner in crime, Bill Thomas.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to Mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm

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Bill Thomas, and we're joined again today by Matt Murphy. Matt,

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welcome back to Mind over Murder, and thank you so

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much for joining us again.

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Speaker 5: Happy to be here.

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Speaker 4: So you joined us last time to talk about your

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newly published memoir, The Book of Murder, and we've actually

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had a number of listeners who said they bought it

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on our recommendation, so I love it. We're really pleased

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by that.

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Speaker 2: Hopefully I'm a massive spike in sales as a result

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of appearing on Mind over Murder.

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Speaker 5: I'll think I'll take you any spike I.

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Speaker 4: Can get, so during your interview, we also spoke about

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the TV series Monster, the Menendez Brothers and hard on

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the heels of that. It was announced on October twenty

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fourth that George Gascon would recommend re sentencing the Menendez

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brothers considering the sexual abuse allegations that came to light.

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So we wanted to have you back on to talk

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about the Menendez case and the resentencing unit.

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Speaker 5: Again, thanks for having me back.

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Speaker 4: For anybody who is not familiar with the Menendez case,

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can you give us the outlines for anyone who maybe

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just wasn't paying attention back in the eighties, or actually,

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is probably possible some of our listeners may not even

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have been born back in the late eighties.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, this was so, this was a.

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Speaker 6: Very sensational case happening in nineteen eighty nine to very

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wealthy young men. Lyle and Eric Menendez called nine one

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one and reported that they'd come home from a movie

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and their mother and father had been murdered, and they

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walked in and found this errifict murder scene, and it

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was very dramatic.

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Speaker 5: They were crying.

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Speaker 6: Lyle was banging his head against a tree outside the house.

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It was very high drama, a lot of tears, a

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lot of crying. They were raised really in the lap

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of luxury, both of them. The family estate was worth

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about fifteen million dollars back in nineteen ninety dollars, which is,

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I don't know, it's plenty of money. And I had

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this beautiful palatial home on Elm Street and the city

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of Beverly Hills where I actually had one of my

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best friends growing up lived on that street, so I'm

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very familiar.

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Speaker 5: With the area. This is Beverly Hills.

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Speaker 6: This is like what you think of when you think

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of the mansions and if you had all the money

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in the world, where you would move into. Lyle and

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Eric had objectively at least these very idyllic, high dollar lives.

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Their father, Jose was from Cuba originally, and he was

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a driven guy. He was a music industry executive by

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all accounts. He was a tough dad, like he really

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drove his sons very hard. And Eric was was basically

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a professional tennis player, and Lyle was in college and

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this horrific event happened, And about four.

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Speaker 5: Days after the murder, Lyle.

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Speaker 6: And Eric went on a lavish spending spree, which caught

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the attention of the detectives that work in the case.

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They were they were so emotional at the time that

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I don't think they even did any what was called

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GSR testing, or which is don his gunshot resdue to

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test them. I don't think they did so. Anyway, they

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went on a spending spree. Eric hired a full time

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tennis coach, like a like an eight hours a day

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kind of guy that's very expensive. They bought a Porsche,

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They bought a bunch of watches, and it was just

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this very prolific spending spree. They Lyle purchased our restaurant

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franchise bodyguards to go with them everywhere. Was very surprising

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to a lot of the detectives. During the time, they

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started seeing a psychologist named doctor Ozil. During one of

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these sessions, I think it started with Eric. He confessed

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that he in fact had murdered his parents, and then

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Lyle also came in. On some of these sessions, doctor

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Oziel began fearing for his life thinking that Lyle may

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murder him because he knew about this secret. And it

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turns out that he had tape recorded these sessions and

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he instructed his I don't know if she would be

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called a mistress girlfriend. I don't know what the correct

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term would be, because we're referring to nineteen nine to

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me who's he had a romantic relationship with a woman

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who went public and after they had a kind of

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a nasty breakup, and said Lyle and Eric Menendez confessed

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these murders to my boyfriend who was afraid that they

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were going to kill him and he needs to know.

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Speaker 5: So that really kicked it off. And there's a thing called.

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Speaker 6: Tarosoft people versus Tearosoft that allows the therapist patient village

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to be breached when there is a credible threat of

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death or great.

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Speaker 5: Bodily harm to somebody. In this case, it was the doctor.

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Speaker 6: So they hired Leslie Adwerge sentity is a very capable,

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very famous defense lawyer. And for the very first time

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we start hearing allegations of sexual abuse by Jose Menendez.

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They never mentioned that to doctor Ozil, which a lot

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of the detectives and a lot of the prosecutors still

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at the La County DA's office, and a lot of people,

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frankly have a big problem with they're in there. They're

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comfortable enough to confess the murder of their parents, and

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the reason they gave them was that their father they

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killed the mother because it was a mercy killing because

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the father had been having a series of affairs. And

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then once the defense comes in, then it becomes what

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they were being sexually abused, and then it turns into

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they ran what's called imperfect self defense, which is an

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actual but unreasonable belief, and they needed to defend yourself.

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And then they investigation reveal that they purchased shotguns using

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a fake ID, fake IDs down in San Diego, that

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they brought him up, and Eric and Lyle both lied

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repeatedly to investigators, not just about the sexual assault, but

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about how they got the shotguns. They lied to investigators,

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and then they actually lied in court as well, and

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Eric was caught in numerous lives by the old prosecutor

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gun named Western Curriyama that it was met with great

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fanfare in the media back in the day. They each

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had a it was one trial with each other on jury.

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The juries hung. They ran with this sexual abuse defense.

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It was a controversial ruling by the court at the

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time to actually even let that end, because of course

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their parents were sitting on a couch watching TV and

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their mom weighed one hundred and ten pounds, and based

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on the forensics, they were able to establish that after

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going with soun as Winchester, which is shooting all of

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the ammunition and both shotguns and these were twelve gage

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mosspur and shotguns that Lyle actually went outside of the

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car and reloaded because somehow miraculously his mother was still

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alive and he put the gun to her cheek and

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quite literally blew or face off, and that's the police

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were then they called nine one one and said we

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came home from this movie and the lives began basically,

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so to run a self defense claim on that was

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legally controversial at the time.

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Speaker 5: Because it's those pretty tough facts.

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Speaker 6: To claim that you were an imminent fear of your life,

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actual but unreasonable belief in the need to defend yourself

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is typically like you you're in a traffic dispute and

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some guy gets out of the car and you think

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he might have a gun, but you don't see anything

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so you shoot him first. You know, like that that

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might be an imperfect self defense, but imperfect self defense is,

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you know it is. It's a difficult threshold to meet.

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So the first trials hung. They hung based on the

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women and the men. It hung down gender lines, And

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they got new prosecutors for the second trial, and it

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was tried in front of the same judge who after

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the controversy allowing this imperfect self defense when there truly was.

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It's very difficult to meet the legal threshold of admiscibility

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for that new prosecutor again, Nam David Cohn, who I

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actually knew pretty well. He's a career prosecutor, is a

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very good traveler, and he was a fundamentally fair guy.

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He argued successfully that imperfect self defense should not apply

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to these facts because both victims were helpless at the time,

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and the idea of a legal concept that goes back

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thousands of years, that anticipatory self defense is not a defense.

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In other words, you can't say, hey, my neighbor that

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I've had this dispute with, I was worried the next

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Christmas he might kill me, so I went over there

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and murdered him first. That doesn't work as a defense

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as and for obvious reasons, it hasn't in pretty much

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any legal system. So the second trial, the judge precluded

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that as a defense. And what was interesting is that

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during the this was a huge sensational case. During that time,

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Laomanendez picked up a groupie a woman who was visiting

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him in the jail, and she secretly recorded him bragging

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about how well he had lied during the first trial.

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They were both convicted. The California Supreme Court affirmed their conviction.

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Then it went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. Now,

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the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal is a federal court

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that is anything but a rubber stamp for the prosecution.

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It's commonly understood to be the most liberal federal district

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court in the country, has been for many decades. They

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wrote an absolutely biting opinion excoriating the defense at the

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prospect that this could have been imperfect self defense, that

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this was a proper ruling by the court. And so

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this case achieved the highest level of the pellet scrutiny

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by a very skeptical, no nonsense, serious group of judges

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at both the California and Supreme Court level, and also

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the Ninth Circuit the federal level, so they were sent

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to lifestile possibility parole because murder for financial gain in

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the state of California first murdered with the special circuit

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financial gain.

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Speaker 5: Is lifetile possibility parole or straight probation. Those are essentially

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the sensing options for the court.

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Speaker 6: They've been imprisoned for thirty five years and one of

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the family members and the family is split on this.

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There's a lot of talk and chatter saying the family

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quote unquote wants them out. That's just not true. There

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are members of the family who've been very supportive of

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the boys and they're not boys men. And there are

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family members like Kitty's brother Milton, who is adamantly opposed

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to them getting out or being resentenced. So the family

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is a mix of opinions on this. But a family

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member who's supportive turned up with the letter purportedly written.

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It's an undated letter purportedly written to Eric's cousin by

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Eric Menandez saying and there was a line in there

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essentially saying he's so fat now referring to Jose when

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he comes in here, you don't know how about it

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is so it's vague, but they're saying this corroborates the

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allegations of sexual abuse.

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Speaker 5: Arguably it would.

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Speaker 6: The problem is it was written by Eric Menandez. He

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knew about it back then at the time. This isn't

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This isn't exculpatory evidence. This would be considered mitigating, and

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a lot of people don't understand the difference between the two.

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Mitigating evidence means that you did it, but there's something

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to be considered during sentencing. Exculpatory means you didn't do

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it in the most basic terms, and sculptory evidence would

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be as my buddy Larry Yellen, who's now a Superior

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Court judge, was in homicide with me. He would explain

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it as sculpatory evidence means you're in Vegas sitting next

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to an Elvis impersonator drinking a Pina colada on casino

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video at the time the crime is committed, so that's exculpatory.

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This would be more what was the case actually worth

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if they were in fact victims of sexual abuse, and

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by all accounts, Jose Menendez was very domineering, disciplinaryan a father.

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A few days ago we had a big announcement from

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George gascon who's the DA of LA that he is

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recommending that they be resentenced based on this information. And

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also there was a young man back in the day

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now he's a middle aged man who's in the Van

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Menudo who also recently came forward and said that Jose

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Menendez had also sexually used him as well.

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Speaker 5: So that's the run down of the case.

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Speaker 6: I hope that wasn't too much of a too much

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of a ramble, but that's a breakdown. Oh and I'm sorry.

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Most important part, there have been a couple of Netflix

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the one purported to be a documentary and one is

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a dramatized version that really accepts the contentions made by

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Lyle and Eric regarding their purported sexual abuse, and it

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dramatizes that and it portrays that in very stark and

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shocking terms. And then there's so there's been this big

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online movement to have them released, which has been championed,

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probably most notably by Kim Kardashian.

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Speaker 2: As you said to us off the air, noted legal

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expert Kim Kardashian.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I just I keep trying to figure out

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where she fits in the appellate process in the state

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of California because I have so many. I've put a

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lot of people in state prison for murder and also

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rape and also child molested, and I got dozens of

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lifers up there. And I just I wonder when she

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gets to make her ruling on my cases. Is it

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before the Supreme Court.

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Speaker 5: Of California or after the Ninth Circuit.

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Speaker 6: I'm just I'm exactly sure where she weighs in on

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all my cases. I'd like to prepare all my victims'

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families for her opinion on that.

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Speaker 2: I sent some cynicism regarding your Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I can't.

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Speaker 6: I think that's actually my tenth grade vocal word is

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that is sardonic. I'm being sartonic, which I believe means

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bitterly sarcastic.

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Speaker 2: So, just to review, the Menendez brothers actually were put

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on trial twice. You mentioned a hung jury. But for

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the benefit of our listeners who might not be legal

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experts or don't watch as much true crime as Kristin

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Dilly and Bill Thomas do, what's a hung jury? And

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then once a hung jury happens, what happens after that?

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Speaker 6: Sure, in order to be convicted of any criminal offense

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in the United States, you need you need a unanimous

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jury as it should be, and that's a constitutional right

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world guaranteed as Americans, and if your accuse of something,

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members of the community must be unanimous as represented by

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the jury. Sometimes when this happens, you'll get a jury

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that sometimes it's one juror sometimes it's more than one,

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but you'll get a jury that cannot agree, and then

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the court has to declare what's known as a mistrial,

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and essentially you go back to day one of the trial.

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You have to bring in a new jury, not immediately usually,

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but at some point you will retry that person's that

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goes with the territory.

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Speaker 5: If you try enough or.

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Speaker 6: Prosecute enough cases, you'll always have everybody has a few

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that hang where the jury can't make a decision. A

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lot of times they will hang between degrees between a

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first murder or second of your murder, or between a

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second of your murder and a voluntary manslaughter. And in

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this one, I think they couldn't. They just couldn't reach

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a verdict on the very first question that was first murdered,

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so each one and it's this is actually an interesting

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procedural vehicle.

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Speaker 5: Because it's rare.

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Speaker 6: Because the brothers had potentially divergent interests because Lyle apparently

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had made doctor Oziel felt that Lyle was threatening and

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intimidating him. They each got their own jury, so they

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had some divergent defenses. And we wouldn't want out of

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fairness to airic Menandez or a code defendant. You don't

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want evidence to be admitted that makes your client look

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so bad that so there are you can't apply that

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to both. So really there's certain rare circumstances where you

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want to try code defendants each with their own jury

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because they're going to be asked to decide different legal

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and factual questions even though they're joined in their co

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defendants in the case. So that was something done in

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an abundance of caution by the trial judge to do

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everything you could to ensure the fairness of the process

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against them.

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Speaker 2: So in a trial, typically you have a jury of

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twelve people and their alternates if someone gets sick, etc.

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Speaker 6: So it's to yell so yeah, yeah, And in a

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case like that, you'd have probably this thing went on

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for a long time, so you probably have five or

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six alternates, so it's never just twelve, Which is funny

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because some of the old architects who designed the courthouses

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in Orange County didn't know that. And we actually have

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a North Justice Center and foot and some architect and

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nobody in the county ever looked over your shoulder, just

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designed every jury box in the building with twelve seats.

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So every jury trial you do, you have to bring

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in folding chairs for the extra jurors to sit in.

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And it was comical, but yeah, so you always have

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alternates in a case like that. You always have at

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least three or four people in case somebody gets sick,

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or get some a car accident, or decides they can't

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be fair.

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Speaker 2: Right, and the alternates have to hear all of the

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testimony because if they step in, even though you're an alternate,

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you're still spending all the same amount of time and

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listening to all of the testimony, which could go weeks

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or even months.

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Speaker 5: We had a great judge.

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Speaker 6: You used to describe it to perspective jerors as you folks,

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or it's like being invited to the banquet and you

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don't get to eat.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so they sit there there a juror.

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Speaker 6: In every respect, and then they are available in case

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there's an issue, if a jury commits misconduct or can't.

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A lot of times it will happen during trial. Somebody

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will get they'll get sick, they'll get in a car accident,

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all have a family member whether that has an issue,

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something will blow up and they have to be excused

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from jury duty, and then you just fill in an

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alternate with that. And that's also very common on long trials,

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and a lot of murder.

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Speaker 5: Cases, especially with the complexity of these.

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Speaker 6: Tend to take a while, so you need to make

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sure you have alternates lined up.

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Speaker 2: And so in this example, you actually have the same

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information testimony being presented with two juries in two different bodies.

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Speaker 5: Yep, that's right. So you have about probably about thirty people.

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Speaker 6: I don't know how many they actually impaneled on that,

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but yeah, it's andy. Maybe they have one in LA.

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We didn't have one in an Orange County. There's no

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courtroom designed to accommodate two juries. So typically what will

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happen is the section off a part of the gallery

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for the jury to watch from the gallery. And I

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don't know, I don't know how they did that in

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that original trial, whether they were suiting the gallery or

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how they accommodated that, but there were two juries, and

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it's rare. It's rare, but again that's something that the

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judge did to ensure fairness to both codefendants.

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Speaker 5: That's the idea, yea.

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Speaker 2: In the minute as example, because I think this becomes important.

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There was a hung jury. They couldn't agree. Ultimately, they

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go back to the judge and say we're deadlocked. We

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cannot come up with a unanimous verdict, right, and then

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they start all over again. As you mentioned, Matt, so

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there were two juries, and then they started all over again,

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and so there's a whole second trial, right, So.

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Speaker 6: We had an expression for that, having to retry case.

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They just call it it's like putting on a wet

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bathing suit, because it's you got to go through the

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whole thing again. And then if you got to try

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a case three times, it's putting on a wet sandy

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baiting suit. No, no prosecutor ever wants to try a

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case twice. So actually, and it's interesting, there were the

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two prosecutors originally on an Endez were replaced by a

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really steely eyed, hard hitting career prosecutor named David Kahn

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who knew his business and I did cases with him.

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I knew him reasonably well, and he was that guy

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was the real deal. So he came in and he

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prosecuted the second case in front of the same judge.

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And look, every trial is new, and so he especially

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having heard all the evidence in the first trial, and

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how essentially they weren't able, in the view of the

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court to establish any actual fear of imminent and it

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has to be imminent. There were no fear of imminent

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danger from jose who is sitting on my couch watching TV.

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And certainly none from there. I don't know how old

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she was, say sixty year old, one hundred pound mother

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that once. I think there were one of the I

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think they called either fifty four or sixty four defense

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witnesses in the first trial. So the court listened to

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all that, and Cone came in, having reviewed that the

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entire record on that, saying this does not meet the

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threshold of imperfect self defense. You can't get there from here.

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There's no raptional argument that they were actually in imminent fear.

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We understand the court allowed about the first time. But

399
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here was what they actually produced. If you look at

400
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it in the form of what's called an offer of proof,

401
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like what we're going to prove. They didn't prove it,

402
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and they called all these people who threw a bunch

403
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of mud at the victims, but they failed to stablish

404
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:21,880
the legal threshold. And it's important to remember the law

405
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is the law for everybody. Our system is based on

406
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a thing called starry decisives, which essentially is Latin for

407
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what has come before. Essentially and in civil law, which

408
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is the way they do it in the majority of

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the world. It's and not speaking to used with like

410
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civil proceedings here in the United States, but they call

411
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it civil laaror Napoleonic codes, where it is based on

412
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essentially everything is written by a legislature, so which rules,

413
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and it's written rules that somebody sat down and sharing wrote.

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The strength of our system is ours is different. Ours

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is based on real people, going back hundreds of years,

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in real scenarios with real human beings, where these great

417
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philosophical questions of what is fair, what is just?

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Speaker 5: What is the best way to do it?

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Speaker 6: That legal concept will survive over time and be improved

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upon over the years. So it's real people, real events,

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and it's wisdom of real judges making good decisions. That's

422
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what our law is based on. And then we also have,

423
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of course legislative stuff as well, but that's the way

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our trials are supposed to work. So when you're talking

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about imperfect self defense, when we start allowing people to

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say it wasn't actual self defense when my parents, who

427
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really mean to me, or my dad was my dad

428
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allegedly sexually abused me years before or even last night,

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and so I decided to kill him, even though at

430
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that moment there's nothing imminent, and even though I planned

431
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this murder out, and even though I went on a spending.

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Speaker 5: Speed right after.

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Speaker 6: There are legal thresholds that have been that have withstood

434
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the test of time concerning this concept of imperfect self defense.

435
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And again in the case of Menendez brothers, this was

436
00:21:55,039 --> 00:21:57,400
a huge case back in the day as it is

437
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now here we are talking about it, and this was

438
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something that which stood the most skeptical, highest level of

439
00:22:03,799 --> 00:22:07,240
pellet scrutiny that you can experience in the Western United States,

440
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and that's the California Spree Court and then the Ninth Circuit,

441
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and they upheld the court's ruling based on these facts.

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Speaker 4: I want to get into why we're at the resentencing

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question right now because I think it's particularly interesting that

444
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the timing on this, As you had mentioned before, we

445
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do have two media presentations, one as a documentary, the

446
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other is fictionalized. And then we're also right ahead of

447
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as you told Bill and if there a rather contentious

448
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election in Los Angeles. Before we get into those sort

449
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of mitigating factors here, we do want to talk about

450
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the Resentencing Unit and why it was ultimately established. I

451
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:51,720
was taking a look at the DA's website and it

452
00:22:51,839 --> 00:22:54,960
said that the Resentencing Unit was established in twenty twenty

453
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one to address over incarceration through contemporary laws and policy.

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Can you unlegalize that for us? What does that mean?

455
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What is the Recenency Unit aim to do? And why

456
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are we seeing Eric and Lyle brought up in front

457
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of it now?

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Speaker 6: Okay, George Gascone was the former DA of San Francisco,

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and for anybody who's been to San Francisco lately, there

460
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are a lot of people in that city, a lot

461
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of law enforcement who blame the current state of San

462
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Francisco on George Gascone and his philosophy of not punishing people. Essentially,

463
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he came in with the opposite of a thing called

464
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the broken windows policy of New York that came in

465
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under Rudy Giuliani in the nineteen eighties, where they decided

466
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that they were going to start enforcing fines for things

467
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like broken windows, which is where it comes from. Like

468
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with the idea of improving the quality of life for

469
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New Yorkers.

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Speaker 5: They were going to try to clean up the city.

471
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Speaker 6: The opposite of that is essentially everybody's a victim, no

472
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cash bail, and we should rehabilitate everybody instead of actually

473
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using custodial sentences as a method of criminal law enforcements.

474
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So those are the two diametric opposite opposites philosophically, and

475
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so after George Gascone was no longer the DA of

476
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San Francisco, right after the summer of George Floyd, he

477
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ran for DA. He challenged a friend of mine, her

478
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,440
name was Jackie Lacy. I thought she was a great DA.

479
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:20,960
A lot of people did her office really liked working

480
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:25,119
for her. He challenged her, basically attacking her largely for

481
00:24:25,599 --> 00:24:29,039
some police officer involved shootings that these officers were cleared.

482
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:30,920
But there was a lot of activism at the time,

483
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,519
and they let George Gascone run with the ballot designation

484
00:24:33,599 --> 00:24:37,359
of Criminal Justice Reformer, and we all remember that crazy

485
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,559
summer and he was elected the DA. In his very

486
00:24:40,599 --> 00:24:44,240
first day in office, he came in with sweeping edicts.

487
00:24:44,839 --> 00:24:47,000
His nickname among a lot of law enforcement in southern

488
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,519
California as Captain Freedom. So among the edicts that he

489
00:24:50,559 --> 00:24:54,519
came in with were his very first day, he announced

490
00:24:54,519 --> 00:24:57,960
that he was no longer going to allow his proskers

491
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,359
to attend what are called BPT life for hearing. That's

492
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:04,119
the border prison term life for hearings. So essentially, with

493
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:07,279
some exceptions, the three categories of life prisoners in the

494
00:25:07,279 --> 00:25:11,079
state of California are rapists, child molesters, and murderers. Those

495
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:13,160
are basically the cases for which you can get a

496
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,200
life sentence. There's a few three strikers that were very

497
00:25:16,279 --> 00:25:18,759
violent that were struck out, and then there's a there

498
00:25:18,759 --> 00:25:22,759
are a very few kidnapper kidnappings that result in great

499
00:25:22,759 --> 00:25:25,960
Bottle Andrew, but by and large, ninety five percent plus

500
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,279
are either going to be doing life for murder, rape,

501
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:31,240
or child lust. Okay, so his very first day he

502
00:25:31,279 --> 00:25:33,079
announced that they would not oppose.

503
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 2: Those you're listening to mind over murder. We'll be right

504
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:48,119
back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here

505
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:49,279
at mindover murder.

506
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 6: In other words, what happens whenever a life prisoner comes up.

507
00:25:54,839 --> 00:25:56,640
If somebody gets twenty five years to life, they come

508
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,599
up for parole under current law at around less than

509
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:01,839
twenty years, so if.

510
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:02,759
Speaker 5: They'll get a prole hearing.

511
00:26:03,519 --> 00:26:04,759
Speaker 6: The way that works, and this is a part of

512
00:26:04,759 --> 00:26:07,240
my job in the homicide unit for seventeen years, you

513
00:26:07,319 --> 00:26:10,720
actually send a representative of the office, a professional prosecutor

514
00:26:10,839 --> 00:26:13,480
with the file to sit in the room and do

515
00:26:13,519 --> 00:26:16,160
these bpt live for hearings. So when the guy comes

516
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:18,559
in for his parole hearing, it says I'm totally innocent,

517
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,480
I didn't do it, or it's not the way they said,

518
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,279
And a lot of times their stories will morph over

519
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:26,920
twenty years, and you've got a professional there to go

520
00:26:27,039 --> 00:26:29,519
actually that's not true. He tied her up, he raped

521
00:26:29,519 --> 00:26:31,680
her first. You know, you've got somebody there with the

522
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,599
file to oppose it. So the board has the best

523
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,319
information available and they actually have an advocate in the room.

524
00:26:37,559 --> 00:26:40,359
And look, sometimes I've gone on those where I thought

525
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:42,759
the guy really served his debt. There'd be like some

526
00:26:42,799 --> 00:26:44,839
of those old gangsters that are involved in a drive

527
00:26:44,839 --> 00:26:47,880
by when they're eighteen, they didn't fire the gun, especially

528
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,279
if they program and they're in there and they express

529
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,200
genuine remorse and they're out of the gang personally, And

530
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:55,160
this is my personal opinion. I never had any problem

531
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:56,920
with those guys getting out. But when it comes to

532
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,680
the guys like the sexual predators or the ones who

533
00:26:59,759 --> 00:27:02,759
murder innocent people or murder people from money, which is

534
00:27:02,799 --> 00:27:06,079
what the Menandez brothers were convicted of, yet they those

535
00:27:06,079 --> 00:27:09,680
have a different flavor tone and Gascon across the board

536
00:27:10,039 --> 00:27:14,000
as a sweeping edict refusal lets prosecutions attend and oppose

537
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,440
any of those. The voters of Los Angeles County don't

538
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,799
know that it's an outrageous thing. It's the I'm telling you,

539
00:27:20,799 --> 00:27:23,880
the worst thing for public safety imaginable. And these guys,

540
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,759
one of the points of hypocrisy of that is that

541
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:28,960
they don't get paroled. I live in Manhattan Beach. Then

542
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:30,839
they get parolled in my little nice neighborhood. They get

543
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:33,799
parolled to the same neighborhoods that people like George Gascon

544
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:36,640
profess to care so much about. And those poor people

545
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,680
are the ones that are victimized next by these guys.

546
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,000
Imagine the biggest bully for your listener, now multiplied by

547
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,359
about ten. That's pretty much what it takes to get

548
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:47,960
a life prison, a life sentence in California State prison.

549
00:27:48,279 --> 00:27:50,079
You really have to work to get that. It is

550
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:51,960
not an easy thing. There's a lot of myths about

551
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,200
three strikes out there, but you've got to earn that.

552
00:27:54,279 --> 00:27:56,559
And if you're a VPT lifer and you go up

553
00:27:56,839 --> 00:27:59,160
some of those guys, I totally agree, I have served

554
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,519
their debt. Most of them haven't, especially the sex vendors.

555
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,279
So guessco and came in with that. He also he

556
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:07,480
refused to very first day he said, we're not going

557
00:28:07,519 --> 00:28:10,880
to apply strikes anymore. Having been a prosecutor for twenty

558
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,519
six years. Strikes are it's a widely misunderstood law. It

559
00:28:14,559 --> 00:28:18,480
allows judges on the worst of the worst to double

560
00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:21,400
sentences and to make sure And what actually the effect

561
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,480
of three strikes practically is it unclogged a lot of

562
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,079
the court system because these guys would plead guilty to

563
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,279
reasonable offers so that they and they wouldn't clog up

564
00:28:30,279 --> 00:28:32,680
the system because the risk of taking it to trial

565
00:28:32,839 --> 00:28:35,359
was too high. Another thing he did is he struck

566
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,039
called gang enhancements. There's a thing called one to eighty six,

567
00:28:38,039 --> 00:28:40,720
which is the California Street Terroism Act. We have an

568
00:28:40,759 --> 00:28:44,880
active gangsterer victimizing the innocent people in his community. That

569
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:46,640
was an enhancement that you could put in there. So

570
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,240
if he was robbing people with the benefit for the

571
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:51,440
benefit of the gang, or claiming the gang as he

572
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,680
did it to intimidate witnesses, that was an additional enhancement.

573
00:28:54,759 --> 00:28:57,640
All of those were wiped out under George Gascon. So

574
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,400
he came in. He is a very he's a hard

575
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,160
left and I want to Empha says this. I am

576
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,880
not a political guy. I don't belong to any political party.

577
00:29:06,079 --> 00:29:10,160
My book is completely a political from a public safety standpoint.

578
00:29:10,279 --> 00:29:12,480
That was, in my view, a slap in the face

579
00:29:12,559 --> 00:29:15,640
the innocent members, the hard working members of those a

580
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:17,680
lot of those communities with these guys we get paroled

581
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:20,400
to and it's a real shame. So what happened was

582
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,720
there have been two recall campaigns. My fellow Angelina's and

583
00:29:23,759 --> 00:29:25,799
I grew up in this city woke up to what

584
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:29,200
a nightmare George Gascone was. Now Baddie was for public safety.

585
00:29:29,799 --> 00:29:32,519
This guy is he's never prosecuted a single case in

586
00:29:32,559 --> 00:29:34,160
his life. As far as I know, he's never actually

587
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,640
tried a case. He's an administrative figurehead for the hard

588
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:41,960
left in California, and he's been a disaster for public

589
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:44,599
safety in the city of Los Angeles. And he was

590
00:29:44,759 --> 00:29:47,440
thirty points down in the last polling done by the

591
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:51,759
Los Angeles Times. Again, no schilfeur, the prosecution or the police.

592
00:29:51,839 --> 00:29:56,039
Los Angeles Times thirty points down. So the Menendez habeas petition.

593
00:29:56,839 --> 00:29:59,559
In other words, habeas means new evidence has been discovered,

594
00:29:59,599 --> 00:30:02,480
and we all have to be open minded, especially as prosecutors.

595
00:30:02,519 --> 00:30:05,599
But if new evidence comes to light that may show

596
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:08,400
that somebody didn't do it, boy, that's a really important

597
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:12,000
thing and that needs to be addressed immediately. The abeas

598
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,000
was submitted to George Gascone eighteen months ago with the

599
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,400
same thing, the letter purportedly written by Eric and the

600
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:20,160
Menudo guy. So that's been sitting on his stats for

601
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,839
eighteen months, and now on the eve of the election,

602
00:30:24,039 --> 00:30:27,319
we are days away and he's thirty points down and

603
00:30:27,359 --> 00:30:29,960
a lot of people in his office, not me. I

604
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:31,839
don't know what's in his head, so I can't really

605
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,559
say but a lot of the prosecutors in his office

606
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,160
believe that is a cynical attempt to garner gen Z

607
00:30:38,359 --> 00:30:40,559
votes by waiting and doing this on the eve of

608
00:30:40,599 --> 00:30:43,960
the election. He was always going to do this. The

609
00:30:44,039 --> 00:30:46,920
question is why did he wait so long? George Gascon

610
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:49,359
in the view of many of his prosecutors, again not me,

611
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:51,599
because I've never actually spoken to the guy that they

612
00:30:51,599 --> 00:30:54,720
think he's never met a freaking criminally didn't like. So

613
00:30:54,839 --> 00:30:58,000
he's one of those He's one of those activist das,

614
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,839
So he was always going to recommend that they be resentenced.

615
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,559
But if it's so compelling, as the argument goes by others,

616
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,519
why did he wait eighteen months and do this literally,

617
00:31:07,839 --> 00:31:10,519
really George single digits away from the election.

618
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 5: A lot of people think.

619
00:31:12,079 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 6: That is it's a gross political attempt to garner some

620
00:31:16,079 --> 00:31:19,599
votes on an election that, hopefully for me personally and

621
00:31:20,359 --> 00:31:23,119
everybody I know in LA an election that he loses

622
00:31:23,119 --> 00:31:24,079
and loses badly.

623
00:31:24,839 --> 00:31:28,599
Speaker 2: A lot of our listeners have responded. We put out

624
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:32,319
a notice saying, hey, do you have questions for Matt

625
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:37,759
Murphy veteran prosecutor regarding them Menendez case, and if you

626
00:31:37,799 --> 00:31:40,720
don't mind, we'd like to jump into some of these questions.

627
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:41,599
Speaker 5: Absolutely.

628
00:31:42,599 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 2: Let's start off with Jessica asks, can Ma explain for

629
00:31:46,359 --> 00:31:48,519
those of us not well versed in the legal system,

630
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:52,440
what their sentences were in the first place, how did

631
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,359
the jury come to the guilty and conclusion, and how

632
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:59,400
his social media been able to influence this case so quickly.

633
00:32:00,079 --> 00:32:02,839
Speaker 6: Great questions, all of them to Jessica. So, number one,

634
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:04,599
the way they were convicted, we went through that a

635
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,680
little bit. The evidence was overwhelming. They actually shot their parents,

636
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:09,680
and they went on a spending spree. So the question

637
00:32:09,759 --> 00:32:11,839
then became, at the time they did it, did they

638
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,359
believe that they were in fear of death, of great

639
00:32:14,359 --> 00:32:17,400
bodily harm. They bought the shotguns two days before, they

640
00:32:17,559 --> 00:32:21,519
literally went out and reloaded. And Eric was eighteen at

641
00:32:21,559 --> 00:32:24,920
the time, and I believe Lyle was twenty maybe twenty one.

642
00:32:25,319 --> 00:32:27,839
But these are two strapping young guys, one of them

643
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,119
is a professional athlete, and the jury didn't believe that

644
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,000
they were in a position where they feared for their

645
00:32:33,039 --> 00:32:35,519
life from their one hundred pound mom, especially when they

646
00:32:35,519 --> 00:32:38,960
were armed with the most devastating close quartered combat weapon

647
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,319
ever invented by man. So they believed that and look,

648
00:32:42,319 --> 00:32:44,839
it's also important for Jessica and the other listeners to

649
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,720
understand the way the law works is and again this

650
00:32:47,799 --> 00:32:51,000
goes back a couple thousand years. It is the concept

651
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,559
that one hundred percent makes a hole, okay, And why

652
00:32:53,599 --> 00:32:55,880
do I say that when it comes to murders for

653
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,920
financial gain and I have prosecuted many of them.

654
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 5: Works is you will often have mixed motives in a murder.

655
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:03,519
If you have a.

656
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 6: Dispute with your neighbor. You might hate the color of

657
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:07,720
his car, and you have a dispute over the fence,

658
00:33:07,799 --> 00:33:10,440
and maybe his son wants to date your daughter. There

659
00:33:10,519 --> 00:33:13,200
can be all kinds of reasons. Or maybe a better

660
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,079
example would be a child moluster may kidnap a child

661
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,039
who wants to ransom the child and molest the child.

662
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,200
So there can you can have mixed motives in a murder.

663
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:24,480
And in fact, it's very rare that anyboy will have

664
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:27,839
a pure one reason to commit a murder. Usually there's

665
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,079
multiple reasons. And the way it works for financial gain

666
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:33,119
one hundred percent being a hole is if.

667
00:33:33,039 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 5: You are motivated at all at all by.

668
00:33:35,799 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 6: Financial gain, you can be motivated ninety nine percent nine

669
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:39,599
nine percent.

670
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:40,759
Speaker 5: It doesn't equal a hole.

671
00:33:41,359 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 6: You can be motivated to ninety nine percent by let's

672
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,400
hold our noses and say everything is true that Jose

673
00:33:46,559 --> 00:33:49,680
Menendez was molesting these guys. It was horrible, but if

674
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:51,759
there's just a little bit of that motivation was for

675
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,640
financial gain in the state of California under the law,

676
00:33:55,119 --> 00:33:57,839
that is that satisfies every element for first three murder

677
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,039
plus murder for financial gain, and their behavior and the

678
00:34:01,079 --> 00:34:03,559
spending spree and the watches and the Porsche's and all

679
00:34:03,599 --> 00:34:06,519
that stuff certainly was evidence in support of that as

680
00:34:06,559 --> 00:34:09,719
a theory. So that's number one. Second part of that was,

681
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:11,840
I believe how does the resentencing work?

682
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:12,320
Speaker 5: I believe it was.

683
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,079
Speaker 4: The second part was how did the jury come to

684
00:34:15,159 --> 00:34:16,800
their guilty conclusion?

685
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 5: Ultimately, so they're.

686
00:34:18,079 --> 00:34:21,079
Speaker 6: Finally that's how it's based on that evidence. And then

687
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:22,840
the second part of the question was.

688
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:27,119
Speaker 4: How has social media been able to influence this moving

689
00:34:27,159 --> 00:34:28,679
through the DA's office so quickly.

690
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 6: Yeah, so this is and that's one of the things

691
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,039
that's out there that's really ironic that it hasn't.

692
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:35,119
Speaker 5: Moved through the DA's office quickly.

693
00:34:35,159 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 6: It's been sitting on Guest Goon's desk for eighteen months.

694
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,039
The behavious technically is different than this latest pitch, but

695
00:34:42,039 --> 00:34:44,800
he's had this information for over a year and a half.

696
00:34:45,079 --> 00:34:49,199
But the influence of social media, these Netflix specials, everybody has,

697
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,559
It's garnered a bunch of attention. The way that this

698
00:34:52,679 --> 00:34:56,480
case was portrayed on Netflix, which was highly dramatized based

699
00:34:56,519 --> 00:34:58,920
solely on the word of Lyle and Eric, who were

700
00:34:59,039 --> 00:35:03,400
again repeat heatedly proven to be untruthful to various people,

701
00:35:03,559 --> 00:35:06,119
pretty much everybody about pretty much everything from the nine

702
00:35:06,159 --> 00:35:08,800
to one operator, to the first responders, to the first

703
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,840
cops on scene, the first detectives, to the juries, and

704
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,400
to the court multiple times for multiple reasons. Capped off

705
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:19,679
by Lyle bragging about how he lied in the first

706
00:35:19,679 --> 00:35:22,719
trial on tape, which is why he didn't testify in

707
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,679
the second trial. All of that kind of led to

708
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:31,760
their conviction. This social media push, championed by Kim Kardashian,

709
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,119
led to a lot of media on this and George

710
00:35:35,159 --> 00:35:38,719
Gascon's big announcement that they are recommending that they be resenten.

711
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,079
Now it's important to point out court doesn't have to

712
00:35:41,119 --> 00:35:44,480
accept that recommendation. The court doesn't have to do that,

713
00:35:44,519 --> 00:35:46,960
And I don't know this judge, but there is so

714
00:35:47,119 --> 00:35:49,400
much it's almost I heard a friend of mine in

715
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,280
the leda's office who's a career prosecutor, described it to

716
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,920
me as a reverse lynch mop. We don't do mob

717
00:35:55,079 --> 00:35:56,880
justice in the United States for a reason. We have

718
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:58,880
courts for a reason, we have juries for a reason.

719
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,960
When you have somebody that wants to lynch somebody, like

720
00:36:03,039 --> 00:36:05,800
why it are defending the accused horse thief. I think

721
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:07,679
it was famously with the Shatgo when he came out

722
00:36:07,679 --> 00:36:09,400
and said that can be no lynchings. I'm going to

723
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:12,199
protect this guy. This is the reverse in the view

724
00:36:12,199 --> 00:36:13,880
of many of the career prosecutors there. This is a

725
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:16,360
bunch of people who don't know very much about the case,

726
00:36:16,559 --> 00:36:19,199
what actually happened. They watched a special and they think

727
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:20,119
that correctly.

728
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:22,079
Speaker 5: I think it's motivated largely by good.

729
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 6: A lot of people believe what they saw in this

730
00:36:25,079 --> 00:36:29,760
fictionalized TV show, and so they people are rightly offended

731
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:32,519
by sexual abuse, and they think that somebody who's truly

732
00:36:32,559 --> 00:36:36,119
been sexually abused that's a mitigating factor and that they

733
00:36:36,159 --> 00:36:39,159
should be released. A lot of other people believe they've

734
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,280
thirty five years is enough time, which is a separate issue.

735
00:36:42,519 --> 00:36:44,880
So there's a lot of I think very well meeting

736
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,760
people out there who watch this show and if rallied.

737
00:36:48,039 --> 00:36:51,400
But again, there's a reason why we have judges and juries.

738
00:36:51,679 --> 00:36:54,039
There's a reason why we don't do mob justice in America,

739
00:36:54,079 --> 00:36:57,480
and we shouldn't do mob justice for releasing people because

740
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,199
there are truly unseen consequences here that a lot of

741
00:37:01,199 --> 00:37:05,360
people don't know and don't understand, this movement to abolish

742
00:37:05,519 --> 00:37:07,480
life without possibility to parle as a sentence, and this

743
00:37:07,599 --> 00:37:09,400
is going to about to be a poster case for that.

744
00:37:10,599 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 4: So Elizabeth, who notes that she is also an attorney,

745
00:37:14,119 --> 00:37:16,280
wants to know two things. She says, Number one, in

746
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:20,159
Matt's opinion, could this set a dangerous precedent for future cases?

747
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:23,519
She thinks it does, And she also asks does Matt

748
00:37:23,599 --> 00:37:26,280
think the resentencing is a slap in the face to

749
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:27,360
the original jury?

750
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:28,320
Speaker 5: Wow?

751
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:32,079
Speaker 6: Those are two fantastic questions, Elizabeth, and thank you for

752
00:37:32,119 --> 00:37:34,440
asking that. And the answer again going back to that story,

753
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,000
decisis things that which has come before?

754
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,039
Speaker 5: Yes? One percent.

755
00:37:40,119 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 6: This sets a very dangerous presson and it's important for

756
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:46,199
people to understand, especially the gen Zers who maybe listening

757
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,039
note this comes from a good place. I totally understand

758
00:37:49,159 --> 00:37:51,360
that it comes from a good place. Part of the

759
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,119
narrative out there is this kind of myth that nobody

760
00:37:54,199 --> 00:37:57,639
understood that men could be victims of sexual assault back then,

761
00:37:57,719 --> 00:37:59,800
as if this was one hundred and fifty years ago.

762
00:38:00,519 --> 00:38:03,440
I worked in the sexual assault unit in the nineteen nineties,

763
00:38:03,599 --> 00:38:05,880
and I can tell you there were times where over

764
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:09,679
half my case that involved male children. So that was

765
00:38:09,679 --> 00:38:11,840
something that was very well understood back in the day.

766
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,000
And it's this whole thing that like, oh, it's only

767
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,639
rejective because people didn't believe that men could be the

768
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:17,840
victims of sexual assault.

769
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 5: It's just preposterous. Okay.

770
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 6: So this sets a horribly dangerous precedent because the people

771
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,000
who are doing life without possibility of parole in the

772
00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:29,719
state of California are the worst of the worst. These

773
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,280
are people that a lot of times LWOP is given

774
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,480
as an alternative to the death penalty I set on

775
00:38:34,519 --> 00:38:37,840
our Death Penalty Review Committee, we only sought death in

776
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,320
less than four percent of the cases that qualified. So

777
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:41,840
it has to be a murder, and it has to

778
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,840
be one of the very small but or under special

779
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:49,079
circumstance murders like kidnapping for rape, kidnapping for ransom committed

780
00:38:49,159 --> 00:38:52,039
during the course of a rape, like murders committed during

781
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,239
the worst of the worst crimes. Those are crimes that

782
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:58,800
are eligible for life without possibility of parole. A robber

783
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,119
who goes into seven eleven and kills the poor clerk,

784
00:39:01,559 --> 00:39:04,519
those are the elwop offenses. Also, people that are doing

785
00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:07,679
life in prison. I can't emsize it strongly enough. Rapists

786
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:11,639
and child monsters with multiple victims, and even a straight rape,

787
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,960
just a forcible sexual intercourse accomplished by force and fear

788
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,239
is not a life case. In the state of California,

789
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:18,960
the life are are the ones that stick the gun

790
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,159
in the woman's face, that put the knife to her throat,

791
00:39:21,159 --> 00:39:23,159
that break in the middle of the night, that for

792
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,199
sodomy and tie up their husband and make and watch.

793
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:27,679
Speaker 5: It is the worst of the worst.

794
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,679
Speaker 6: Those guys exist, they're in the world, and every one

795
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:33,360
of them is paying attention to this. And there's this

796
00:39:33,599 --> 00:39:36,599
entire movement in the state of California by people like

797
00:39:36,639 --> 00:39:41,440
George Gascone and his ideological comrades who believe that life

798
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,079
is barbaric and everybody deserves the second chance. And I'm

799
00:39:45,079 --> 00:39:47,079
here to tell you, after twenty one years of doing

800
00:39:47,119 --> 00:39:50,920
sex crimes, of prosecuting sess crimes, there is no fixing

801
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:55,039
sexual predators. That you cannot fix them. Once they get out,

802
00:39:55,079 --> 00:39:57,880
they're going to keep doing it. A friend who said

803
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,199
they're possessed by the green worms in their brain.

804
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 5: Is how he put it.

805
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:04,039
Speaker 6: They will continue to do it or be a risk

806
00:40:04,119 --> 00:40:06,639
of doing it once they've crossed the rubicon into actually

807
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:10,239
victimizing human beings. And this is a lesson we learned

808
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:12,360
over and over again. This is the paly Claus case

809
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,039
with Richard Allen Davis. This was this was Rodney ol

810
00:40:15,079 --> 00:40:17,199
call it. Rodney alcala at the dating game. Killer was

811
00:40:17,199 --> 00:40:19,280
one of mine. Anna Kendrick has a movie out called

812
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,079
Woman of the Hour. Every one of your listeners watched

813
00:40:22,119 --> 00:40:24,239
that movie. And I write a whole chapter in my

814
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,719
book on Rodney all call it. He was caught for

815
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:28,360
the kidnapping and rap of an eight year old girl

816
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:29,480
named Telly Shapiro.

817
00:40:29,199 --> 00:40:30,159
Speaker 5: In nineteen sixty eight.

818
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 6: He was captured after fleeing to New York. He was

819
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,559
brought back, he was prosecuted, He got a life sentence,

820
00:40:36,599 --> 00:40:38,920
and the pro board released him. In thirty four months,

821
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:41,400
and guys, he went on to murder one hundred people

822
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,880
at least. And that is what people like George Gascon

823
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:46,679
believing everybody deserves.

824
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:47,119
Speaker 5: A second chance.

825
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 6: Sorry, can I swear that's bullshit? That is a is

826
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,719
you talked about a slap in the face, which is

827
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:55,320
one of the things. Sorry to rant here you, guys,

828
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:56,960
I promised you I wasn't going to ramp. This drives

829
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,519
me crazy, all of these people that watch this Netflix

830
00:41:00,519 --> 00:41:03,400
show that believe that sexual assault is wrong, that are

831
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:07,280
motivated by that one hundred percent. I've dedicated my professional

832
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,960
life to representing victims of sexual assault that for both

833
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,679
in the sexual assault unit and in homicide, in their families,

834
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,000
and in my private practice, I do pro bano work

835
00:41:16,079 --> 00:41:18,960
representing adult women who've been the victims of sexual assault,

836
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:19,199
and I.

837
00:41:19,159 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 5: Do that for free.

838
00:41:20,079 --> 00:41:23,039
Speaker 6: Okay, I have dedicated my professional life to this, and

839
00:41:23,079 --> 00:41:26,360
I'm telling you, the people that will benefit most from

840
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:28,519
this as far as setting a dangerous precedent are the

841
00:41:28,599 --> 00:41:31,079
rapists and child monsters that are serving life in California

842
00:41:31,079 --> 00:41:34,559
State prison. And if we eliminate life without possibility of parole,

843
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,400
it is absolutely it is not only a slap in

844
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,599
the face to the jury that followed the law here.

845
00:41:41,119 --> 00:41:44,199
I wish my friend David Kahn was still alive because

846
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:46,679
he would be such a fierce advocate against this because

847
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,400
as the original prosecutor. But it is a slap in

848
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:53,599
the face to every victim of sexual assault who survived

849
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,679
and whose perpetrator is serving life in prison.

850
00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,079
Speaker 5: And it's like people are.

851
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,199
Speaker 6: Motivated by good here and they think that they're advocating

852
00:42:02,199 --> 00:42:05,199
on behalf of victims of sexual abuse without understanding that

853
00:42:05,199 --> 00:42:08,360
they're advocating right now for the elimination of life possibility

854
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,320
of prole as a custodial sense in the state of

855
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,079
California and more broadly life offenses in general, which is

856
00:42:14,519 --> 00:42:17,800
everything that George Gascon and his ideological ILKs stand for.

857
00:42:18,159 --> 00:42:21,800
And the people that will suffer are the innocent men, women,

858
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,480
and children in the state of California when those when

859
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,519
the sexual predators start getting released. And this is a

860
00:42:27,639 --> 00:42:30,760
scream at my TV moment for me, it drives me

861
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,039
insane when I see Kim Kardashian advocating for the release

862
00:42:34,079 --> 00:42:37,039
of these guys, she should know better that truly the

863
00:42:37,039 --> 00:42:40,920
people that benefit here are the most predatory biggest bullies

864
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,639
and monsters that you can imagine. And let me tell

865
00:42:43,679 --> 00:42:46,199
you that the golden days of serial killers. They did

866
00:42:46,199 --> 00:42:49,400
a documentary on how that, for strangely in California was

867
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,440
the late seventies and early eighties. Guys were catching those

868
00:42:52,519 --> 00:42:55,880
guys now after their first rape or second rape because

869
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:58,400
forensic science, as they're building up to the murder part,

870
00:42:58,639 --> 00:43:01,000
they get better. You are going to have a I'm

871
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:02,679
telling you right now, we will have a new rash

872
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:05,400
of serial killers in the state of California if guys

873
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:07,679
like George Gascon have their way and these people are

874
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,199
released in mass which is what's going to happen if

875
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,000
l WOP is eliminated as a sentence, and that is

876
00:43:13,039 --> 00:43:16,159
what this entire case is the vanguard of see.

877
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,199
Speaker 4: What you want all of your cases, matt.

878
00:43:18,039 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 5: I promised you I wasn't gonna ran I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Matte.

879
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 6: Now you said you told me your listeners had were

880
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:25,960
really smart and had great questions.

881
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,559
Speaker 5: So I think the current term is triggered. These are

882
00:43:28,599 --> 00:43:30,239
such good questions. I'm being triggered.

883
00:43:31,159 --> 00:43:34,079
Speaker 4: No, I love it, and this is exactly what we want.

884
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,000
We need people who can explain this to those of

885
00:43:38,079 --> 00:43:40,480
us who do not have the legal background. We don't

886
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:42,800
know your training. We need you to tell us that.

887
00:43:43,079 --> 00:43:44,559
Speaker 6: Let me throw in a let me throw in another

888
00:43:44,599 --> 00:43:47,039
thing for your listeners to educate themselves on this. In

889
00:43:47,079 --> 00:43:48,960
addition of my book on writing I'll Call It, which

890
00:43:49,639 --> 00:43:51,800
I'm not just pitching my book, I wrote an entire

891
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:55,000
chapter on this and this entire concept of releasing these

892
00:43:55,039 --> 00:43:57,559
guys because he was a member of the Revolving Door

893
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,280
Criminal Justices and we had in California.

894
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:02,639
Speaker 5: The idea that they call themselves progressives.

895
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,599
Speaker 6: Okay, and I am, like again, politically neutral guy here,

896
00:44:05,639 --> 00:44:08,280
but when it comes to public safety, this is not

897
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,920
progressive at all. This is regressive to the policies that

898
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:12,760
we had in the seventies that allowed for the release

899
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,039
of guys like writing I'll Call And I spent seven

900
00:44:15,119 --> 00:44:17,119
years with the families of his victims as we put

901
00:44:17,159 --> 00:44:19,760
that case back together and retried that man. There is

902
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,039
a wonderful article written by a guy named Alan Abramson

903
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:26,280
who was a professor of journalism at the Annenberg Journalism

904
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:30,199
School at USC and he was an LA Times reporter.

905
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,079
Again not exactly.

906
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 5: A show for the prosecution, right.

907
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 6: He observed the Menendez trials. He covered him as a

908
00:44:36,519 --> 00:44:39,519
beat reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote a

909
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:45,000
wonderful article recently basically saying why people that are calling

910
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,079
for the release of the Menendez brothers are out of

911
00:44:47,119 --> 00:44:49,960
their minds and they don't understand this is an LA

912
00:44:50,079 --> 00:44:53,599
Times reporter who's now a professor of journalism, who watched

913
00:44:53,599 --> 00:44:57,440
the trial firsthand, understands the evidence better than anybody. People

914
00:44:57,599 --> 00:45:00,880
should find his article. Alan Abramson just wrote this thing,

915
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,280
and I'm blanking on the publication it was in, but

916
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:04,559
you can google it.

917
00:45:04,559 --> 00:45:07,599
Speaker 5: It is a biting commentary on what we're seeing right now.

918
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:10,920
Speaker 4: I think it actually goes really well to our next

919
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,480
question from Laura Bath, who asks, I'm concerned the Menendez

920
00:45:14,519 --> 00:45:18,199
brothers may reoffend once they get out. Can Matt speak

921
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:22,480
to recidivism rates among those people who have been re sentenced?

922
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,559
Speaker 6: Thank you very much, now, gascon Mark Twain had a

923
00:45:26,599 --> 00:45:27,679
great quote.

924
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 5: Okay, and I love this.

925
00:45:28,559 --> 00:45:30,360
Speaker 6: You had a lot of great quotes, but one of

926
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:35,039
my favorites was there's lies, damn lies and statistics. In

927
00:45:35,079 --> 00:45:39,000
other words, like everybody can manipulate statistics, and gascone is

928
00:45:39,039 --> 00:45:43,159
going around regarding this Resentencing Unit. How little recidivism there

929
00:45:43,199 --> 00:45:45,519
has been for my money for a vanity project for

930
00:45:46,079 --> 00:45:49,280
a guy like Gascone, And I think he said they've

931
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:52,480
done like one hundred and only four have reoffended. If

932
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,400
there's four murders committed, that's for too many. If there's

933
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:58,320
four child moless from guys that had life sentences, that's

934
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:01,679
for too many. So once we catch these guys, especially

935
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:05,679
the real predators, it is incumbent upon elected officials to

936
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,400
do their fricking job and protect the public from people

937
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,800
once they have established themselves as being sexual predators. So

938
00:46:12,159 --> 00:46:14,760
when it comes to Lyle and Eric, it's somewhat different

939
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,360
because there wasn't a sexual component and so they wouldn't

940
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:19,679
have the same compulsion. And let's face it, not to

941
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,360
be glib here, they're out of parents to kill, but

942
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,639
they are. So if they got out, chances are those

943
00:46:25,679 --> 00:46:29,320
two guys they very well might They they could re offend,

944
00:46:29,559 --> 00:46:32,800
But the circumstances will never align here. They're all of

945
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,559
the money that they expected to get from this washed

946
00:46:35,559 --> 00:46:38,119
away into legal fees. Almost immediately. There was a fifteen

947
00:46:38,159 --> 00:46:41,880
million dollar insurance policy they expected to get from Jose's company.

948
00:46:42,159 --> 00:46:45,599
His entertainment company that it had already lapsed, so they

949
00:46:45,679 --> 00:46:48,159
didn't get And there's also I believe, a multimillion dollar

950
00:46:48,199 --> 00:46:50,639
insurance policy that of course they weren't entitled to because

951
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:54,119
they killed their parents, they don't have money. There's nobody

952
00:46:54,159 --> 00:46:57,880
to kill again to access money in their world. So

953
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:01,119
hopefully the risk of recidivism is low. But the larger

954
00:47:01,199 --> 00:47:03,360
question here is when you're talking about the victims of

955
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,199
violent crime. Okay, there's a saying in homicide, your best

956
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:09,480
victim is or your best witness is always dead. Okay,

957
00:47:09,559 --> 00:47:12,599
And this is probably the biggest example of victim blaming.

958
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:16,840
Imagine if Kitty Menendez could come back and be given

959
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,559
an opportunity to refute the allegations is against her and

960
00:47:19,639 --> 00:47:23,199
her husband, right, or at least say, okay, great Jose

961
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:24,840
was bad at the kids, what about me?

962
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:26,079
Speaker 5: How can you do that?

963
00:47:26,159 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 6: There's no self defense there, there's no rational argument for

964
00:47:28,519 --> 00:47:31,280
self defense there. And everybody uses the parents as like

965
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,719
a monolithic block with parents like they use the family

966
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:36,360
as a monolithic block, like the family wants them out.

967
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:40,400
Absolutely empirically false. The family does not. The family is

968
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,159
divided on that. It's the same thing with Kitty and

969
00:47:43,199 --> 00:47:46,239
all the stuff about I'm sorry, I'm on a tangent here,

970
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:49,519
but all the stuff like Jose doesn't necessarily apply to Kitty.

971
00:47:49,639 --> 00:47:51,800
So the thing is that in addition to just their

972
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,320
risk of reoffending, which the vast majority of elwock prisoners

973
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:57,440
that they're released as far as I'm a concerned one

974
00:47:57,480 --> 00:47:59,559
hundred percent of guarantee they're going to reofense, especially the

975
00:47:59,559 --> 00:48:03,239
sexual ones. But this is one where if you plot

976
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,360
the murder of another human being for the purpose of

977
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,519
taking money, and it's elaborate, this was I don't know.

978
00:48:08,599 --> 00:48:11,320
I'm down with the philosophy that your life is forfeit,

979
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:13,880
that you should have to die in prison. And as

980
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:17,880
soon as we say the special circus are the special circumstances,

981
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:20,760
it is a very small list of murders like drug

982
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:25,360
ripoffs not a special circase, domestic violence murders not special circase,

983
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,719
the vast majority of gunn of gang crimes not special circases.

984
00:48:30,039 --> 00:48:32,639
Speaker 5: So that the cases that qualify for life without.

985
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 6: Possibility of parole are such a minuscule percent overall of

986
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:40,440
homicides committed in general, that my thing is, where is

987
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,440
the justice for double homicide victims? Now this is interfamiliar,

988
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:46,480
but a lot of times it's not a lot of

989
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:48,639
times we're the next guy up, by the way, will

990
00:48:48,679 --> 00:48:50,679
be somebody who lined up workers at a home depot

991
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:52,039
and shot them all on the back of the head.

992
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:54,760
That's the next multiple murder for financial gain. That's the

993
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,320
typical murder for financial game that you see where you

994
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:00,000
have innocent store workers who are taken into the store

995
00:49:00,159 --> 00:49:03,159
room and execute it. So I get Zach, I get

996
00:49:03,159 --> 00:49:05,880
out too, No wow, offer him. That's the problem with

997
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:09,159
this slippery slope that a lot of people without contemplating

998
00:49:09,159 --> 00:49:11,119
the consequences of something like this.

999
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 4: Matt, what do you anticipate the outcome is going to

1000
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,480
be in this case? You have said that the judge

1001
00:49:17,599 --> 00:49:22,800
does not have to resentence the Menendez brothers. What do

1002
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:24,440
you think ultimately is going to come of this?

1003
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,639
Speaker 6: I think that what may ultimately come of this is

1004
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:31,840
and this is just pure guests here. There can be

1005
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:33,280
a sentencing range.

1006
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:34,039
Speaker 5: Okay.

1007
00:49:34,159 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 6: So one of the options is that the court con

1008
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:41,079
sent resentence I believe, and sentenced because we have a

1009
00:49:41,159 --> 00:49:44,480
firstgree murder with a firearm. He can sentence for the

1010
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:48,039
first murder plus the gun enhancement which I think we

1011
00:49:48,079 --> 00:49:50,639
may see something down in the middle here where it's

1012
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:54,639
something short of immediate release, but maybe type thing where

1013
00:49:54,639 --> 00:49:56,199
they get a parole hearing. And I haven't done the

1014
00:49:56,199 --> 00:49:58,000
math on it, and we have to go back to

1015
00:49:58,119 --> 00:50:02,039
nineteen eighty nine, the nineteen eighty nine statute. In modern

1016
00:50:02,079 --> 00:50:04,719
times that would be fifty life. So the court could say, okay,

1017
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:07,239
you no longer have al up and sence you to

1018
00:50:07,519 --> 00:50:09,960
fifty years to life, and then they we would have

1019
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:13,320
another ten years before the next pearl hearing. I haven't

1020
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:15,719
done the math on the enhancement from nineteen eighty nine.

1021
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:17,880
It was different than that, but that's an option that

1022
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:19,920
the court could have. So I think if I had

1023
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:22,360
to guess, we're going to see something where he will

1024
00:50:22,679 --> 00:50:25,719
take the recommendation and split the baby, and then they

1025
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:27,920
won't get a pearl hearing immediately, but they might get

1026
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:29,679
a parol hearing in three or four years, and everybody

1027
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:32,719
can chill out and move on to the next flashy

1028
00:50:33,119 --> 00:50:35,400
topic on Netflix, and then.

1029
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:38,280
Speaker 5: They'll quietly get parolled. When you're talking.

1030
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,519
Speaker 6: About an inner family thing, I think a plenty of

1031
00:50:40,599 --> 00:50:42,880
judges would go, okay, thirty five years. I'm satisfied that

1032
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,039
they've paid their debt. I could see a judge doing

1033
00:50:46,079 --> 00:50:49,239
that and not being irrational. The question is, going back

1034
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:52,559
to Elizabeth's comment, is what a dangerous precedent that sets,

1035
00:50:52,639 --> 00:50:57,760
especially with hardcore activist guys like George Gascon who advocate

1036
00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,960
essentially and the only people that come in my opinion

1037
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:04,239
that he's aggressively prosecuted that we've seen, or police officers'

1038
00:51:04,559 --> 00:51:07,039
that came in with that, also announcing that from day one.

1039
00:51:07,079 --> 00:51:09,559
And I actually represented a police officer involved in a

1040
00:51:09,559 --> 00:51:12,079
fatal officer involved shooting that was cleared in twenty eighteen,

1041
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,360
but they indicted him from manslaughter, and I believe my

1042
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:19,400
client is actually innocent. First person I've ever represented that

1043
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,639
I can actually say that about. So Anyway, there's an

1044
00:51:22,679 --> 00:51:25,039
ancient curse guy's called They said, may you live in

1045
00:51:25,039 --> 00:51:29,400
interesting times? And we live in very interesting times. I'm

1046
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:31,639
sorry for my passion on this and for the rams,

1047
00:51:31,639 --> 00:51:34,199
and I'm sure plenty of your listeners I've watched that

1048
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,360
Netflix theories and might think that I'm crazy, but this

1049
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,960
is based on my experience dealing with George Gascone as

1050
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:44,480
a DA and the clients and all of my also

1051
00:51:44,559 --> 00:51:47,159
I should say I've represented the families of two murdered

1052
00:51:47,159 --> 00:51:49,400
police officers, just to give you an example of some

1053
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:51,840
of the impact of these policies, and we're wrapping up here.

1054
00:51:52,119 --> 00:51:54,519
One of them was a SHAREFF Stepia sergeant who was

1055
00:51:54,559 --> 00:51:57,239
on responded to a burglary and somehow the bad guy

1056
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:59,800
who's a documentary gang member, got the drop on him.

1057
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:02,559
He managed to wound the officer who's on his back

1058
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,320
with survivable wounds. He shot him four times in the

1059
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:08,960
face and once in the badge, okay, and executed him.

1060
00:52:09,039 --> 00:52:11,159
And he was a good man and a good police

1061
00:52:11,159 --> 00:52:13,760
officer with the family that loved him. I represented the

1062
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,000
family after George Gascon came in, because when you eliminate

1063
00:52:17,039 --> 00:52:19,400
the gang enhancement, and you'll eliminate the strikes and you

1064
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:22,320
eliminate the gun enhancement. From the moment that I got in,

1065
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,880
that man who had multiple violent felonies in his background,

1066
00:52:27,079 --> 00:52:30,400
a documented gang member, who executed a police officer and

1067
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:33,000
the shot in the badge says a lot right. He

1068
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:35,960
would have received a parole hearing under George Gascon's policies

1069
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:38,760
in eight years after I came in in the case,

1070
00:52:39,159 --> 00:52:43,440
eight years and that is outrageous. That is outrageous, that

1071
00:52:43,679 --> 00:52:45,920
that is a slap in the face to victims a

1072
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:49,559
violent crime. Everywhere, it's practically spitting in the face the

1073
00:52:49,599 --> 00:52:52,360
surviving police officer's family. And I did everything I could

1074
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,039
to oppose that, and we won on that, but it

1075
00:52:55,079 --> 00:52:57,039
was he'd already been he've.

1076
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:58,159
Speaker 5: Gone through the preliminary hearing.

1077
00:52:58,519 --> 00:53:02,199
Speaker 6: Fortunately there's we haven't had a case exactly like that sense,

1078
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,480
and hopefully we've hit bottom in my hometown of Los Angeles.

1079
00:53:07,519 --> 00:53:09,840
Speaker 4: Matt. There is clearly so much more to this than

1080
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:11,840
meets the eye, and we can't thank you enough for

1081
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,000
spending time with us and bringing your passion and commitment

1082
00:53:15,119 --> 00:53:15,360
for this.

1083
00:53:15,519 --> 00:53:18,639
Speaker 6: So thank you so much, No, thank you guys, thank

1084
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:20,239
you for having me that.

1085
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:21,840
Speaker 4: Is going to do it for this episode of mind

1086
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,199
Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see

1087
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:25,800
you next time.

1088
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:39,840
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and

1089
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:41,360
Another Dog Productions.

1090
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.

1091
00:53:45,599 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.

1092
00:53:48,639 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod.

1093
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:55,159
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.

1094
00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:59,159
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

1095
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway

1096
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:03,760
murders on Facebook.

1097
00:54:03,559 --> 00:54:06,599
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at

1098
00:54:06,599 --> 00:54:07,320
Bill Thomas.

1099
00:54:07,599 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 5: Five six.

1100
00:54:08,719 --> 00:54:11,840
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder