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10 25 24 Former FBI Agent Brad Garrett discuses resentencing the Menendez brothers
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Even at night, welcome to the chance to savor every moment, every time you're here, to your old friends, new experiences, and great times, welcome to where life moves at the speed of you. This is your time. This is your place. Welcome to Void Casino's. Welcome to where you want to be. The Menendez Brothers may be resentenced for the 1989 murders of their parents. Since their high profile trial in the 90s, we have a different cultural view of the impacts of sexual and physical abuse. Joining us now on the K-Wade Common Spirit Health Hotline to talk more about it is ABC News Crime Analyst, Brad Garrett. Brad, thank you so much for your time as always. Walk us through the resentencing recommendations that we heard from the Los Angeles County District Attorney and how this decision was ultimately made. So the brothers filed a habeas. Now, habeas gets filed by almost every inmate to get their sentence reduced. But for whatever reason, the DA, Mr. Gascone in Los Angeles, decided to take a look at it. Well, your question is why? I don't really know. But the issue is really going to be, will a judge consider resitencing them? Because that's what Gascone is recommending to the court as per a press conference yesterday. So the judge obviously can not do anything and say, no, we're going to let the conviction stand and the sentence stand. And I don't know how many options to be on that because they're already doing life without parole or the judge could reduce it, the Gascone suggested maybe a 50-year sentence. Now they've served 35 years, so that would make them eligible for parole potentially now. But that would be up to a California State parole board as to whether they would get out. So we'll see what a judge does. To your point about why now, well, it's hard to say. I mean, Netflix has come out with two different versions. They have a docu-drama on the bed, and there's brothers. And then there's a documentary that spends a lot of time in the first trial. They were tried twice in the first trial. They were allowed, the defense was allowed to introduce the sexual abuse of both boys. And the second trial, and that was, they had a hung jury in that, and the second trial, the same judge, wouldn't allow the defense to put on the sexual abuse aspect of this case, of the story. And they were both found guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances in California. That means the judge is forced to give you a life without parole. So that's how we got there, you know, why we are where we are today, a combination of, you know, do we have better insight, better sensitivities, in particular, boys being sexually abused? Probably. I think that's maybe spurring some of this. Yeah, Brad, when you look at this trial, it is maybe a juggling act of better insight or maybe better publicity. Like you mentioned, the why might be unclear, but this was a much publicized murder case, not only in the '90s, but with that Netflix documentary, like you mentioned, do you think that that could have played a role into what we saw in the timeline we see now? I think so. And apparently also the brothers have become really popular on TikTok, and maybe other social media sites, where sexually abused adult men who were abused as kids are coming forward and talking to them about that they've never told anybody that this ever happened to them. And so this awareness, you know, TikTok touches a lot of people. That awareness alone, does that have some impact on the district attorney? Again, we don't know. But you know, it's probably an interesting place for him to be because he's up for re-election. I think the polls show that he's down substantially at this point. So did that play into it? Who knows? Brad, when you talk about the possibility of the outcome of what could happen next, the eligibility of parole, when we look at it in the timeline of it, do we have any idea of when they could be released in this timeline? No. I mean, obviously, Gascon has to file certain documents with the court. And you can well imagine, you know, then in a place like Los Angeles, the number of habeases that are filed. I mean, they have the biggest jail system or one of the biggest in the country. So there's a lot of people locked up in California, in particular, a lot of people locked up because of LA County, because that's where the crimes occurred. So I guess what I'm seeing is there's a lot of inmates to go through. Will they expedite this? Hard to say. If you ask me to guess, I would say the least of weeks. And obviously, every case is different. But Brad, can you compare this to anything in the past that we've seen before? Well, I mean, we have seen, obviously, cases in the past where kids, or now as adults, have harmed parents that sexually abuse them. And obviously, we've had multiple situations where battered wives, abused wives, have killed their husbands who got leniency, some of them in sentencing. And so, you know, the big argument is, of course, that if the first trial, if the second trial had had the same elements in it, would they have gotten what they have gotten? And my guess is no. We'll continue following all of this with the latest in the resentencing of the Menendez brothers. With more coming up in the newscast as well, ABC News Crime and Terrorism analyst, it's Brad Garrett. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank. You deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one. #FDIC.