October 20, 2024 • 21 mins
Cliff Gardner is the lawyer leading the charge to have Lyle and Erik Menendez released from prison.
In this episode, we speak with Cliff about the new compelling evidence that could help secure their release, why he thinks public interest has resurfaced after more than 30 years, and whether he believes the Netflix specials and social media movement have helped or harmed their chances.
In this podcast, we’ve included small excerpts from the 1993 trial, courtesy of Court TV. If you’d like to view the entire trial, you can follow them here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoge production. To understand the alleged abuse at the hands
of their father, it's important to look at some of
the details that wasn't covered much in the Netflix special.
We did see Jose abuse Eric on the tennis courts
and a few heated arguments with Lyle.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am trying to see you.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You're not going to say when you get exactly the
same thing when you're on my age mom or not hipocrat?
What about that? Oh, this all happened when they were older?
On the special, what about them is children? Did years
of alleged abuse finally end with them shooting their parents?
(00:47):
Jose and Mary Louise Menendez, who most people knew as Kitty,
got married in nineteen sixty three. They met in Uni.
Jose was hard working, ambitious and driven from a young age.
He didn't have money to start with. He built his
wealth after becoming a C suite boss in Hers, the
rental car company, then RCA Records, and then Live Entertainment.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Jsie Menendez as chairman of the board, president and chief
executive officer of Live Entertainment joining us here in Los Angeles,
and I should point out this is the company, folks,
that brings you the teenageant Ninja Turtles video, which seriously
is a high video right now. It is so the
company is broad based and it provides pretty much what
the consumer wants, and you must have projections for down
(01:33):
the road where you're expecting to make at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We think nineteen eighty nine will be a tremendous here.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Kitty was an aspiring actress when she was younger, but
once she married Jose, it was reported that she shifted
her support to Jose's ambitious career in the music industry.
As Jose's career flew, Kitty became more withdrawn. By the
time they moved to Beverly Hills, Kitty had been seeing
a therapist and self medicating with pills and kangnac. In
(02:01):
nineteen eighty six, Eric found a note that was written
by his.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Mom basically said that she had no other way out,
that she couldn't handle the shame of a divorce from dad.
She was sorry that she had to take this way
(02:25):
out and that she was leaving and I thought it
was clearly a suicide letter. She wasn't just leaving town,
and my brother didn't realize that at first.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
We saw on the TV show that Jose had a phase.
It contributed to the toxic environment in the Menendez house.
The marriage was dysfunctional, and he impacted the brothers.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I think that we had spoke earlier about his father's
relationship with another woman. I think the phone call triggered
something and he turned said I could kill my father
for forty days to my mom.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So at that point, when he said I could kill
my father for what he did to my mom, did
you feel like he was actually going to go out
right then and kill him. Okay, when you said for
what he did to my mom, what was the context
of that? What was your understanding about what the.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Father had done? From my understanding, his father had another
relationship and his mom under a lot of stress and
she attempted suicide.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Among other witnesses presented in the court, a cousin came
to talk about the family dynamic.
Speaker 7 (03:37):
Diane Marie Vandermullen.
Speaker 8 (03:41):
When you first went to stay with them, were you
treated well.
Speaker 7 (03:48):
In nineteen seventy six, Yes.
Speaker 8 (03:50):
And did that change over the period of time that
you went to visit them?
Speaker 7 (03:54):
Very much? So she changed very much. I felt special
with her during that time. By nineteen eighty two, eighty
three visit, to the point where I was afraid to
come upstairs from my bedroom because I wasn't sure what
was going to happen, because it seemed like I could
do nothing right. Crying was considered a weakness.
Speaker 8 (04:18):
And what would happen if the boys would cry?
Speaker 7 (04:23):
Gosh, They'd either be sent to their room or left alone.
Speaker 8 (04:32):
Would there be times during the last visit where Jose
would go to Eric's room before dinner, Yes, and meet
with him privately.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (04:46):
And after those meetings what would Eric be like when
it came out?
Speaker 7 (04:55):
Jose would state that Eric was not feeling well and
that he d was not able to eat at his
dinner at that time and that he would eat later.
Speaker 8 (05:05):
And did you see times where Lyle and Jose would
have talks.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
It was understood that when Jose was speaking to Lyle
or either the boys, that they were to be left
alone and you didn't intrude.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
From an early age, Loll testified that his dad would
bully him and his mom would also discipline him.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
My life was structured with little goals, and.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
He would say that.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
We need to set short term goals, and some of
these were like to fix the flaws that I seemed
to have with walking?
Speaker 7 (05:46):
What was wrong with the way you walked?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Just with feet outward?
Speaker 8 (05:52):
And besides talking to you about it as a goal
was a flaw to be corrected? How else did he
deal with this flaw of yours?
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Made fun, made fun of all or anything like that.
He made fun over in our family and the walking.
He would walk behind me and make quacking noises and say,
I walk like a dug and get.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Out and make quacking noises. What was wrong with your speech?
Speaker 6 (06:16):
I didn't announciate properly, That's what he said countless times.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And I also sometimes stuttered.
Speaker 8 (06:27):
How would he handle that?
Speaker 4 (06:28):
To make fun of it?
Speaker 7 (06:30):
What would he say?
Speaker 6 (06:30):
He'd just stutter back. Sometimes it was some in my room,
so come back when I can talk. Sometimes he would
just stutter. Sometimes he would just sweet.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
A reminder, hear what you're hearing is from the first
trial in nineteen ninety three, the trial it was deemed
a mistrial because it was a hung jury. In nineteen
ninety six, the second trial convicted both brothers of murder
and life imprisonment. They would spare the death penalty.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yes, my name is Cliff Gardner.
Speaker 9 (07:01):
I'm a post conviction lawyer in Berkeley, California, representing people
accused of crimes and post conviction proceedings.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And how long have you been representing lawman Indez?
Speaker 9 (07:14):
I was appointed to represent loyal on appeal back, and
I would say ninety six or ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I want to take you back before nineteen ninety six
and before were you aware of the case as it happened?
Like we'll go back to I.
Speaker 9 (07:29):
Oh, Jay, everyone was aware of this case. This was
huge news all over the country and certainly in California. Yeah,
I was aware of the prosecution. I didn't follow the
case daily in the papers, but I certainly knew what
was happening.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Is a lawyer, is this one of those cases that
you go, I have to be involved in that.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
You know.
Speaker 9 (07:50):
I don't know that I said I have to be
involved in it, but I did say I'm going to
be involved in it. I had a few in which
is one reason I stay away from reading about it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Because.
Speaker 9 (08:01):
Please take no offense Jay, about your brethren in the press.
Sometimes the press doesn't tell the whole story, and so
I stay away from the accounts as they appeared in
the people.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
What was your initial thoughts you.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Know the way the press was playing it up.
Speaker 9 (08:19):
The entire press corp played it as a one note story,
and the story was spoiled. Rich kids killed their parents
for money. It's an easy story to tell Graham's headlines.
I suspected, as I often do in high profile cases,
that there was more to the story than that.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
But I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Cliff was assigned the case from court given his experience
in complicated cases. The Menandez case wasn't just complex, given
it was two trials and three different juries. It was
around the work that Cliff and each team were going
to have to undertake, and that work was going to
take a lot of time.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
Well, actually what happened was I got a call from
the presiding Justice of the Court of Appure, Justice Turner,
wanted to actually meet with me before he appointed me.
So I went down and I and with a nonprofit
that governs the cases down there. We actually had a
meeting in chambers. Justice Turner expressed his wishes for how
quickly the court the case could be handled. I expressed
(09:17):
my concerns about how long it would take given the length.
We course traded a bit and then the court appointed me,
you know, with a few.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Days of that meeting, and then so when do you
have your first conversation with Lyle?
Speaker 9 (09:33):
Well, you know, I can't recall exactly because it's been
almost thirty years, but I had to come up to
speed a little bit on the case. It doesn't make
sense to talk with a client really before you know
anything about the case, because they want to give you
information about the case, whether it's Lyo or someone else,
and you've got no place to put that. You don't
know enough about the case to say, oh, I understand
(09:53):
now what witness you're talking about. So there was some
initial case review, and then I remember flying down to
see Lyle in state prison.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I'm guessing over the two trials that happened, there's a
lot of information that you've got to look through and
read through. Right.
Speaker 9 (10:13):
My recollection is that the record mine appeal, what we
call the record on appeal, which are the transcripts of trial,
was something between and you'll excuse the large range because
it's been so long, with something between sixty and ninety
thousand pages.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Oh my, yes, I.
Speaker 9 (10:29):
Had stronger language when it arrived at my offen from
many brothers.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
When we first reached out to cliff A. Few months ago,
we thought our chances of talking with the lawyer representing
both the brothers was going to be a stretch for
an independent podcast or in Australia. We didn't like our chances,
but in a late night email surprise, we get an
email back from Cliff saying he'd be willing to chat
off the record as a first step, and then maybe
post that chat we could work out if he'd be
(10:57):
prepared to go and take Hello, how are you yeah,
really well, thanks thanks to jump on our call.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Or are you I'm in Brisbane, Australia, so you're in California.
I meant.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Cliff and I connected well in that call, and he
agreed to go on the record with me for the podcast.
I wanted to know first, after thirty odd years, why
thinks the renewed interest in this case has happened?
Speaker 9 (11:24):
Boy, this is a question I get all the time,
and it's utterly puzzling to me.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Why this case? Why now? And it's an enormous interest
in the public.
Speaker 9 (11:37):
And we'll talk a little bit, but it's so different
than what it was back in ninety six. It was
also enormous interest, but the nasty messages I would receive
for working on this case are so different from the
public's response to me now in terms of messages, in
terms of emails, it's to say night and day. It
(11:59):
doesn't even begin to describe the difference. You asked, what
causes it? I suspected social media. I suspect it's TikTok.
I suspect it's the documentaries and the dramatizations that have
been shown about the case.
Speaker 8 (12:14):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (12:15):
And and maybe it's the fact that when people see these,
they can actually go back to YouTube footage and see
some of the trial footage, and so they're not confined
to listening to what a DA's office or a defense
lawyer says about the case. They can actually go and
see the testimony themselves.
Speaker 7 (12:31):
Hello, everyone, So I want to talk about a very
disturbing part of the Menandez brothers case that nobody talks about.
Speaker 10 (12:39):
Well, I hope you're sitting down for this, because I
just found this out myself and I'm literally disturbed by it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So breaking news.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
They have now held a press conference regarding the release
of the Menendez brothers.
Speaker 10 (12:50):
The first person to speak was the attorney who represents
the brother convicted. That is why they had.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Their parents by in.
Speaker 10 (12:59):
The day, so the police at the their reputation was furnage.
I think we'll arrested god Or and other people, and
it just didn't look good for the police during that time,
so they needed a win.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
As much. Do you believe this attention with a couple
of Netflix documentaries and TikTok going crazy? Is it good
or a bad thing for your Klan and the case?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
You know, I don't think it's a bad thing. But
to have.
Speaker 9 (13:36):
This kind of renewed scrutiny about the case, I don't
think it's bad. I think it could the fact that
people can access information and reach an opinion on their
own without either taking a view from the district attorney's
office when they say this is what happened the district
attorney's office back in ninety six, or taking the view
of the defense lawyer says this is what happened. I
(13:58):
think the fact that people can access the information and
reach a judgment now in light of what we now
understand to be the impact of sexual abuse on young children,
boys or girls, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I don't think it may be legally relevant, but.
Speaker 9 (14:13):
I think in terms of understanding what happened to Biole
and Eric as boys.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And my guess is social media, although is loud and noisy,
has no place in the judicial system in the United States.
Speaker 9 (14:30):
They may not understand the finer points of state and
federal Hebus corpus jurisdiction.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
You're right in that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
The habeas corpus writ is what's currently in front of
the courts in California right now.
Speaker 9 (14:44):
It was one of the most notorious murders in American history.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Now new evidence is being examined in the case of
Eric and Lyleman, So the attorney representing the brothers now
says he's very optimistic about the district attorney reviewing evidence
in this case.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
It was lodged by cliff On behalf of both brothers,
in May of twenty twenty three. That feels about the
same time as social media started to light up with hashtags.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
For the general public.
Speaker 9 (15:09):
Abeas corpus means that it produced the body, shows the body,
and it's the method by which anyone who's imprisoned can
demand that the government justify that imprison So you can
file a petition for it. Of abas corpuses and say
this conviction or this sentence violates my rights, my constitutional rights,
(15:29):
my state rights, and the government. Assuming a judge says yes,
there's something here, the government has.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
To then justify.
Speaker 9 (15:36):
It's really what keeps us from being a dictatorship, because
the dictator just can't put you in prison. He has to, oh,
he or she has to justify that imprisonment, and if
they can't, you're out. If that's why they call it
what we call it the Great Rid.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I'm not completely up with the American judicial system, so
I was a little confused at what this meant. Did
this mean that with this new rid, the brothers could
be finally freed or is it not that simple?
Speaker 9 (16:06):
Well, the actual relief we're asking for in this Haylees
edition is at the end of the day, to vacate
the murder conviction. Put the parties back to square one.
If the state wants to try it.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Again, they can.
Speaker 9 (16:20):
And the reason we're asking me to vacate the murder
conviction is because we have new evidence that caused the
conviction into doubt.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
What was your impression of how the defense originally handled
the sexual abuse claims in the original Naughty Three trial.
Speaker 9 (16:34):
Yeah, I thought they did a great job of presenting
the evidence of sexual abuse. You know, keep in mind
day that there's two questions, and people often forget this.
The first question, at least in terms of the defense
that was presented, is where the boys sexually abuse their
whole lives? That's question one. Question two is if they
were does it impact their level of culpability? Does it
(16:55):
reduce murder? De mandslaugh.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
That was the defense. Now you could conceivably say, no,
I don't think there's.
Speaker 9 (17:01):
Enough evidence of abuse here, so we don't even get
to the second question. Or you could say, yeah, we've
looked at all the evidence. We think they were abused,
but at the end of the day, we don't think
it mitigates murdered of manslaughter.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
So there's two questions.
Speaker 9 (17:14):
In the first trial, both questions were presented to the
jury because all the evidence was presented to the jury.
And you probably know this, but in case any of
your listeners don't. The first jury that hoard all the
evidence and got a full set of instructions on both
murder and manslaughter, they were hung six to six, six
votes for manslaughter, six votes for murder, and the second jury,
(17:37):
of course, the second trial things changed, and a great
deal of the most important, most private of evidence was excluded,
and jurors weren't given a theory.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Of defense, and they convicted of murder.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
As you know, there were an enormous number of differences
in the first and second trial the rulings.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Many of the rulings changed. One of the most.
Speaker 9 (18:10):
Significant rulings that changed was that at the first trial
there were two juries, one for each defendant. At the
second trial there was just one jury.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
How does that change the defense strategy?
Speaker 9 (18:18):
You know, when you have two juries, you can present evidence,
and there may be evidence that's relevant to Lyles jury
that Eric jury doesn't hear. There may be evidence presented
for Eric's jury Lyles jury doesn't hear. When the juries
are together, it's a much tougher sell for the defense
than it is for the prosecution. Evidence can come in
(18:42):
against Eric that Lyles jury would hear, they wouldn't have
heard if there were two juries. Evidence can come in
against Lyle that Eric's jury wouldn't have heard if there
were two juris, and that you may instruct the jury. Well,
you're only supposed to consider this as to Eric. You're
only supposed to consider this as to Lyle. But as
one of our famous judges once said many years ago,
(19:02):
that asks the jury to perform a gymnastic no one
can really do. And that's really why the prosecution wanted
one jury.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And from an advocate perspective. From an advocate's perspective, I
can understand.
Speaker 9 (19:14):
Why the prosecution wanted one jury because there may be
prejudicial evidence against Lyle that Eric's jury wouldn't hear it,
and so they want the jury to hear that. So
from an advocate's perspective, I understand it. From a fairness perspective,
the first trial was the way.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
To get who makes the call in that second trol
that there's only going to be one jury the judge.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Judge Weisberg, He was the same judge in both.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Chials, next time on menandez versus monsters. After working on
this case for over thirty years, what do you see
as the most compelling piece of new evidence?
Speaker 9 (19:50):
To me, the heartbreaking piece of new evidence and to
me it's gut wrenching is the letter Eric wrote to
his cousin Andy. I think about eight months before the
crime occurred or the shooting. The shooting I think is
in August and he writes this letter. Around Christmas time,
he writes a letter to his cousin Andy, who was
(20:11):
really one of the only people in life that Eric
really speaks to other than Lyle. And this letter, Andy
unfortunately goes off to college, gives all his papers to
his mom, says save these, and within a couple of
years Andy dies of an overdose, I think, and his
mother doesn't look to the papers for many years, and
when she finally does, she finds this letter, and that
(20:34):
sort of kickstarts behave me.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
His process
Appoge production. To understand the alleged abuse at the hands
of their father, it's important to look at some of
the details that wasn't covered much in the Netflix special.
We did see Jose abuse Eric on the tennis courts
and a few heated arguments with Lyle.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am trying to see you.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You're not going to say when you get exactly the
same thing when you're on my age mom or not hipocrat?
What about that? Oh, this all happened when they were older?
On the special, what about them is children? Did years
of alleged abuse finally end with them shooting their parents?
(00:47):
Jose and Mary Louise Menendez, who most people knew as Kitty,
got married in nineteen sixty three. They met in Uni.
Jose was hard working, ambitious and driven from a young age.
He didn't have money to start with. He built his
wealth after becoming a C suite boss in Hers, the
rental car company, then RCA Records, and then Live Entertainment.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Jsie Menendez as chairman of the board, president and chief
executive officer of Live Entertainment joining us here in Los Angeles,
and I should point out this is the company, folks,
that brings you the teenageant Ninja Turtles video, which seriously
is a high video right now. It is so the
company is broad based and it provides pretty much what
the consumer wants, and you must have projections for down
(01:33):
the road where you're expecting to make at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We think nineteen eighty nine will be a tremendous here.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Kitty was an aspiring actress when she was younger, but
once she married Jose, it was reported that she shifted
her support to Jose's ambitious career in the music industry.
As Jose's career flew, Kitty became more withdrawn. By the
time they moved to Beverly Hills, Kitty had been seeing
a therapist and self medicating with pills and kangnac. In
(02:01):
nineteen eighty six, Eric found a note that was written
by his.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Mom basically said that she had no other way out,
that she couldn't handle the shame of a divorce from dad.
She was sorry that she had to take this way
(02:25):
out and that she was leaving and I thought it
was clearly a suicide letter. She wasn't just leaving town,
and my brother didn't realize that at first.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
We saw on the TV show that Jose had a phase.
It contributed to the toxic environment in the Menendez house.
The marriage was dysfunctional, and he impacted the brothers.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I think that we had spoke earlier about his father's
relationship with another woman. I think the phone call triggered
something and he turned said I could kill my father
for forty days to my mom.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So at that point, when he said I could kill
my father for what he did to my mom, did
you feel like he was actually going to go out
right then and kill him. Okay, when you said for
what he did to my mom, what was the context
of that? What was your understanding about what the.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Father had done? From my understanding, his father had another
relationship and his mom under a lot of stress and
she attempted suicide.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Among other witnesses presented in the court, a cousin came
to talk about the family dynamic.
Speaker 7 (03:37):
Diane Marie Vandermullen.
Speaker 8 (03:41):
When you first went to stay with them, were you
treated well.
Speaker 7 (03:48):
In nineteen seventy six, Yes.
Speaker 8 (03:50):
And did that change over the period of time that
you went to visit them?
Speaker 7 (03:54):
Very much? So she changed very much. I felt special
with her during that time. By nineteen eighty two, eighty
three visit, to the point where I was afraid to
come upstairs from my bedroom because I wasn't sure what
was going to happen, because it seemed like I could
do nothing right. Crying was considered a weakness.
Speaker 8 (04:18):
And what would happen if the boys would cry?
Speaker 7 (04:23):
Gosh, They'd either be sent to their room or left alone.
Speaker 8 (04:32):
Would there be times during the last visit where Jose
would go to Eric's room before dinner, Yes, and meet
with him privately.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (04:46):
And after those meetings what would Eric be like when
it came out?
Speaker 7 (04:55):
Jose would state that Eric was not feeling well and
that he d was not able to eat at his
dinner at that time and that he would eat later.
Speaker 8 (05:05):
And did you see times where Lyle and Jose would
have talks.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
It was understood that when Jose was speaking to Lyle
or either the boys, that they were to be left
alone and you didn't intrude.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
From an early age, Loll testified that his dad would
bully him and his mom would also discipline him.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
My life was structured with little goals, and.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
He would say that.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
We need to set short term goals, and some of
these were like to fix the flaws that I seemed
to have with walking?
Speaker 7 (05:46):
What was wrong with the way you walked?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Just with feet outward?
Speaker 8 (05:52):
And besides talking to you about it as a goal
was a flaw to be corrected? How else did he
deal with this flaw of yours?
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Made fun, made fun of all or anything like that.
He made fun over in our family and the walking.
He would walk behind me and make quacking noises and say,
I walk like a dug and get.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Out and make quacking noises. What was wrong with your speech?
Speaker 6 (06:16):
I didn't announciate properly, That's what he said countless times.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And I also sometimes stuttered.
Speaker 8 (06:27):
How would he handle that?
Speaker 4 (06:28):
To make fun of it?
Speaker 7 (06:30):
What would he say?
Speaker 6 (06:30):
He'd just stutter back. Sometimes it was some in my room,
so come back when I can talk. Sometimes he would
just stutter. Sometimes he would just sweet.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
A reminder, hear what you're hearing is from the first
trial in nineteen ninety three, the trial it was deemed
a mistrial because it was a hung jury. In nineteen
ninety six, the second trial convicted both brothers of murder
and life imprisonment. They would spare the death penalty.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yes, my name is Cliff Gardner.
Speaker 9 (07:01):
I'm a post conviction lawyer in Berkeley, California, representing people
accused of crimes and post conviction proceedings.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And how long have you been representing lawman Indez?
Speaker 9 (07:14):
I was appointed to represent loyal on appeal back, and
I would say ninety six or ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I want to take you back before nineteen ninety six
and before were you aware of the case as it happened?
Like we'll go back to I.
Speaker 9 (07:29):
Oh, Jay, everyone was aware of this case. This was
huge news all over the country and certainly in California. Yeah,
I was aware of the prosecution. I didn't follow the
case daily in the papers, but I certainly knew what
was happening.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Is a lawyer, is this one of those cases that
you go, I have to be involved in that.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
You know.
Speaker 9 (07:50):
I don't know that I said I have to be
involved in it, but I did say I'm going to
be involved in it. I had a few in which
is one reason I stay away from reading about it.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Because.
Speaker 9 (08:01):
Please take no offense Jay, about your brethren in the press.
Sometimes the press doesn't tell the whole story, and so
I stay away from the accounts as they appeared in
the people.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
What was your initial thoughts you.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Know the way the press was playing it up.
Speaker 9 (08:19):
The entire press corp played it as a one note story,
and the story was spoiled. Rich kids killed their parents
for money. It's an easy story to tell Graham's headlines.
I suspected, as I often do in high profile cases,
that there was more to the story than that.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
But I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Cliff was assigned the case from court given his experience
in complicated cases. The Menandez case wasn't just complex, given
it was two trials and three different juries. It was
around the work that Cliff and each team were going
to have to undertake, and that work was going to
take a lot of time.
Speaker 9 (08:56):
Well, actually what happened was I got a call from
the presiding Justice of the Court of Appure, Justice Turner,
wanted to actually meet with me before he appointed me.
So I went down and I and with a nonprofit
that governs the cases down there. We actually had a
meeting in chambers. Justice Turner expressed his wishes for how
quickly the court the case could be handled. I expressed
(09:17):
my concerns about how long it would take given the length.
We course traded a bit and then the court appointed me,
you know, with a few.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Days of that meeting, and then so when do you
have your first conversation with Lyle?
Speaker 9 (09:33):
Well, you know, I can't recall exactly because it's been
almost thirty years, but I had to come up to
speed a little bit on the case. It doesn't make
sense to talk with a client really before you know
anything about the case, because they want to give you
information about the case, whether it's Lyo or someone else,
and you've got no place to put that. You don't
know enough about the case to say, oh, I understand
(09:53):
now what witness you're talking about. So there was some
initial case review, and then I remember flying down to
see Lyle in state prison.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I'm guessing over the two trials that happened, there's a
lot of information that you've got to look through and
read through. Right.
Speaker 9 (10:13):
My recollection is that the record mine appeal, what we
call the record on appeal, which are the transcripts of trial,
was something between and you'll excuse the large range because
it's been so long, with something between sixty and ninety
thousand pages.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Oh my, yes, I.
Speaker 9 (10:29):
Had stronger language when it arrived at my offen from
many brothers.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
When we first reached out to cliff A. Few months ago,
we thought our chances of talking with the lawyer representing
both the brothers was going to be a stretch for
an independent podcast or in Australia. We didn't like our chances,
but in a late night email surprise, we get an
email back from Cliff saying he'd be willing to chat
off the record as a first step, and then maybe
post that chat we could work out if he'd be
(10:57):
prepared to go and take Hello, how are you yeah,
really well, thanks thanks to jump on our call.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Or are you I'm in Brisbane, Australia, so you're in California.
I meant.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Cliff and I connected well in that call, and he
agreed to go on the record with me for the podcast.
I wanted to know first, after thirty odd years, why
thinks the renewed interest in this case has happened?
Speaker 9 (11:24):
Boy, this is a question I get all the time,
and it's utterly puzzling to me.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Why this case? Why now? And it's an enormous interest
in the public.
Speaker 9 (11:37):
And we'll talk a little bit, but it's so different
than what it was back in ninety six. It was
also enormous interest, but the nasty messages I would receive
for working on this case are so different from the
public's response to me now in terms of messages, in
terms of emails, it's to say night and day. It
(11:59):
doesn't even begin to describe the difference. You asked, what
causes it? I suspected social media. I suspect it's TikTok.
I suspect it's the documentaries and the dramatizations that have
been shown about the case.
Speaker 8 (12:14):
Uh.
Speaker 9 (12:15):
And and maybe it's the fact that when people see these,
they can actually go back to YouTube footage and see
some of the trial footage, and so they're not confined
to listening to what a DA's office or a defense
lawyer says about the case. They can actually go and
see the testimony themselves.
Speaker 7 (12:31):
Hello, everyone, So I want to talk about a very
disturbing part of the Menandez brothers case that nobody talks about.
Speaker 10 (12:39):
Well, I hope you're sitting down for this, because I
just found this out myself and I'm literally disturbed by it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So breaking news.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
They have now held a press conference regarding the release
of the Menendez brothers.
Speaker 10 (12:50):
The first person to speak was the attorney who represents
the brother convicted. That is why they had.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Their parents by in.
Speaker 10 (12:59):
The day, so the police at the their reputation was furnage.
I think we'll arrested god Or and other people, and
it just didn't look good for the police during that time,
so they needed a win.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
As much. Do you believe this attention with a couple
of Netflix documentaries and TikTok going crazy? Is it good
or a bad thing for your Klan and the case?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
You know, I don't think it's a bad thing. But
to have.
Speaker 9 (13:36):
This kind of renewed scrutiny about the case, I don't
think it's bad. I think it could the fact that
people can access information and reach an opinion on their
own without either taking a view from the district attorney's
office when they say this is what happened the district
attorney's office back in ninety six, or taking the view
of the defense lawyer says this is what happened. I
(13:58):
think the fact that people can access the information and
reach a judgment now in light of what we now
understand to be the impact of sexual abuse on young children,
boys or girls, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I don't think it may be legally relevant, but.
Speaker 9 (14:13):
I think in terms of understanding what happened to Biole
and Eric as boys.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And my guess is social media, although is loud and noisy,
has no place in the judicial system in the United States.
Speaker 9 (14:30):
They may not understand the finer points of state and
federal Hebus corpus jurisdiction.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
You're right in that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
The habeas corpus writ is what's currently in front of
the courts in California right now.
Speaker 9 (14:44):
It was one of the most notorious murders in American history.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Now new evidence is being examined in the case of
Eric and Lyleman, So the attorney representing the brothers now
says he's very optimistic about the district attorney reviewing evidence
in this case.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
It was lodged by cliff On behalf of both brothers,
in May of twenty twenty three. That feels about the
same time as social media started to light up with hashtags.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
For the general public.
Speaker 9 (15:09):
Abeas corpus means that it produced the body, shows the body,
and it's the method by which anyone who's imprisoned can
demand that the government justify that imprison So you can
file a petition for it. Of abas corpuses and say
this conviction or this sentence violates my rights, my constitutional rights,
(15:29):
my state rights, and the government. Assuming a judge says yes,
there's something here, the government has.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
To then justify.
Speaker 9 (15:36):
It's really what keeps us from being a dictatorship, because
the dictator just can't put you in prison. He has to, oh,
he or she has to justify that imprisonment, and if
they can't, you're out. If that's why they call it
what we call it the Great Rid.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I'm not completely up with the American judicial system, so
I was a little confused at what this meant. Did
this mean that with this new rid, the brothers could
be finally freed or is it not that simple?
Speaker 9 (16:06):
Well, the actual relief we're asking for in this Haylees
edition is at the end of the day, to vacate
the murder conviction. Put the parties back to square one.
If the state wants to try it.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Again, they can.
Speaker 9 (16:20):
And the reason we're asking me to vacate the murder
conviction is because we have new evidence that caused the
conviction into doubt.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
What was your impression of how the defense originally handled
the sexual abuse claims in the original Naughty Three trial.
Speaker 9 (16:34):
Yeah, I thought they did a great job of presenting
the evidence of sexual abuse. You know, keep in mind
day that there's two questions, and people often forget this.
The first question, at least in terms of the defense
that was presented, is where the boys sexually abuse their
whole lives? That's question one. Question two is if they
were does it impact their level of culpability? Does it
(16:55):
reduce murder? De mandslaugh.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
That was the defense. Now you could conceivably say, no,
I don't think there's.
Speaker 9 (17:01):
Enough evidence of abuse here, so we don't even get
to the second question. Or you could say, yeah, we've
looked at all the evidence. We think they were abused,
but at the end of the day, we don't think
it mitigates murdered of manslaughter.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
So there's two questions.
Speaker 9 (17:14):
In the first trial, both questions were presented to the
jury because all the evidence was presented to the jury.
And you probably know this, but in case any of
your listeners don't. The first jury that hoard all the
evidence and got a full set of instructions on both
murder and manslaughter, they were hung six to six, six
votes for manslaughter, six votes for murder, and the second jury,
(17:37):
of course, the second trial things changed, and a great
deal of the most important, most private of evidence was excluded,
and jurors weren't given a theory.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Of defense, and they convicted of murder.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
As you know, there were an enormous number of differences
in the first and second trial the rulings.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Many of the rulings changed. One of the most.
Speaker 9 (18:10):
Significant rulings that changed was that at the first trial
there were two juries, one for each defendant. At the
second trial there was just one jury.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
How does that change the defense strategy?
Speaker 9 (18:18):
You know, when you have two juries, you can present evidence,
and there may be evidence that's relevant to Lyles jury
that Eric jury doesn't hear. There may be evidence presented
for Eric's jury Lyles jury doesn't hear. When the juries
are together, it's a much tougher sell for the defense
than it is for the prosecution. Evidence can come in
(18:42):
against Eric that Lyles jury would hear, they wouldn't have
heard if there were two juries. Evidence can come in
against Lyle that Eric's jury wouldn't have heard if there
were two juris, and that you may instruct the jury. Well,
you're only supposed to consider this as to Eric. You're
only supposed to consider this as to Lyle. But as
one of our famous judges once said many years ago,
(19:02):
that asks the jury to perform a gymnastic no one
can really do. And that's really why the prosecution wanted
one jury.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And from an advocate perspective. From an advocate's perspective, I
can understand.
Speaker 9 (19:14):
Why the prosecution wanted one jury because there may be
prejudicial evidence against Lyle that Eric's jury wouldn't hear it,
and so they want the jury to hear that. So
from an advocate's perspective, I understand it. From a fairness perspective,
the first trial was the way.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
To get who makes the call in that second trol
that there's only going to be one jury the judge.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Judge Weisberg, He was the same judge in both.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Chials, next time on menandez versus monsters. After working on
this case for over thirty years, what do you see
as the most compelling piece of new evidence?
Speaker 9 (19:50):
To me, the heartbreaking piece of new evidence and to
me it's gut wrenching is the letter Eric wrote to
his cousin Andy. I think about eight months before the
crime occurred or the shooting. The shooting I think is
in August and he writes this letter. Around Christmas time,
he writes a letter to his cousin Andy, who was
(20:11):
really one of the only people in life that Eric
really speaks to other than Lyle. And this letter, Andy
unfortunately goes off to college, gives all his papers to
his mom, says save these, and within a couple of
years Andy dies of an overdose, I think, and his
mother doesn't look to the papers for many years, and
when she finally does, she finds this letter, and that
(20:34):
sort of kickstarts behave me.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
His process
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