LIVE: The Menendez Bros Trial (Ep. 59) | CLASSIC TRIALS - Dr. Ann Burgess Pt. 5, Dr. Stuart Hart

welcome to Classic trials if you're new here my name is Alita I'm a lawyer licensed in California and DC and on this channel we make sense of the law one bite at a time in this series we observe and analyze the play-by-play of some of the biggest trials that have shaped the public consciousness of the American judicial system in this season we're working our way through the case of Calfornia V Eric and ly Menendez growing up in Princeton New Jersey and then Beverly Hills California these young men had everything they could ever want or so it seemed until one night on August 20th 1989 they approached Jose and kitty Menendez with newly purchased shotguns put on trial for murdering their own parents they claimed self-defense arguing they were terrorized in their own home by Abus of parents until they could take no more which argument is more convincing come join and see for yourself all right folks hello hello happy Monday good morning good afternoon and good evening why am I am I a little bit blurry hang on a second let's see if we can fix that Mr B just walked in the door I think uh Indie has uh some thoughts on this Monday uh I apologize to uh all of you that are wearing wearing earbuds I am so sorry so anyhow okay this is episode 59 um yeah episode 59 we've been doing this for for a bit today we will be wrapping up the testimony of Dr Anne Buress last week we left off with uh with this this face that she gave the prosecution at the very end of uh um of cross-examination now we're going to get to redirect once she is finished we will be moving on to Dr Stuart Hart who is um who is in he he's he's a professional related to uh child I should I say the word yeah I guess I can say the word uh related to child abuse so um we're gonna get into some stuff today probably trigger warnings abound as per usual um mods will put it up in the chat I'll put it up on the screen from time to time and we are going to we're going to move on progress that way as usual and also as any questions uh let me know in the chat and I will save them as we as we move along and I'll answer them as we go um if I don't answer them right away it's because I've I've saved them um occasionally I miss them but I usually don't on on these because there's the chat doesn't move quite as quickly as it does on some other live streams all right okay so with that let's get moving oh and this EP so this this episode is still going to have some sound issues like last week um for the redirect but this is like oh this is like a whole hour here um okay so this portion but the next one that when we when we bring up Dr Stuart Hart the volume should be better so keep that in mind let me know if I'm too loud in in balance and then I can I can uh you know I can always adjust you know the prosecut is trying to argue their case Witnesses Dr Burgess your next question yes you believe Eric Mendez when he tells you he was molested by his father for 12 years don't you yes I do and you believe Eric Mendez when he tells you that it was that molestation that ultimately led to the unraveling of this family yes and um do you believe that because you're getting paid $100 an hour by the taxpayers of the uh County of Los Angeles to be a witness in this case no I do not why do you believe him there's several reasons why I believe him one the statement that he gives regarding his abuse matches much of the criteria that I always use in evaluating statements and second of all which is probably equally important is that the information that I have regarding the father who is the named abuser in this situation certainly has characteristics that very much fit in with the type of person that would do this all right now when you talk about the type of person that would do this I think we've indicated there's no set profile for a an incest perpetrator that is correct when Eric menend has told you the specific details um including things said things not said actions taken of the 12 years of sexual molestation did the actions and behaviors that he ascribed to his father fit other information you had about Jose Menendez yes it did is that the pattern that you were referring to of consistency between how Jose mendas treated people in other aspects of his life and how he operated as a child molester just what was it that fit the pattern you testified that the information from Eric fit a pattern yes it fit uh the pattern that one sees generally that I've described in terms of access Etc but it also contains the characteristics that would need to be present for the um secrecy to be maintained for the acts to be maintained all of those features also when he described how his father behaved in the context of the sexual activity was that consistent or inconsistent with information you had about the father's behavior in other aspects of his life yes it was in consistent now you're aware of the fact that Eric Mendez testified for I think the better part of 10 days in this trial yes and Mrs banage brought to you one fact involving confusion about where he had the conversation about purchasing a handgun is that right you're aware that he testified for 10 days yes in your cross-examination just now you remember Mrs banic bringing to your attention um the testimony concerning where it was that he had a conversation on Friday that led him to learn that was a two we waiting period for the purchase of a handb yes and you indicated that one explanation for um Eric mandez's confusion on that point for his being wrong which I believe he also testified to did he not yes was that he has a uh a name a naming problem yes and did you see in other aspects of his testimony a similar naming problem yes uh with respect for example to the purchase by his mother of a rifle did that piece of evidence indicate a naming problem yes it did and with respect to what states various cities are in did that indicate a naming problem yes it did now in your opinion if someone is going to make up a story like that does he have to name the place at all no it does not now are you assuming in your analysis of the significance or lack of significance of that uh testimony that in fact he was a different story than the big FSE conclusion witness well Mrs banic asked you for your opinion of whether or not his testimony in that regard was significant yes and you indicated it wasn't because you know he has a naming problem yes does that mean that you assume he's he was at a different store no is there another analysis that you have applied to that information uh to explain the cognitive dissonance if you will between saying big five and they're not being real handguns being sold we assume we've yet to hear that evidence at big five yes and what's the other analysis of that he could have been at that store and misunderstood these guns looked at one and and assumed it was another one not being familiar with guns and in your just so you guys know I am seeing uh the the people talking about the volume being low I can't turn this one up I can't boost it in any way um so I'll I'll just turn myself down and just turn up your overall volume so that when I pause and talk you guys don't have your eard drums blown out um and then when we switch over to the next one then I'll readjust again your experience you've had a great deal of experience have you not in um understanding how people's memory works in your role as an evaluator as a therapist yes do people have photographic memories for conversations occurring years before not necessarily well do they tend to have line forline literal memories not not for years before now now you have alluded to um Eric mendez's statements to the police on both uh August 21st and September 17th as having some kind of special significance to you yes I have and did they have significance with respect to uh Eric's tendency to tell the truth yes they did and would you explain to the jury no strike that you heard Mrs banic ask Dr Tyler for example if Eric lied to the police do you remember that yes I did in your opinion on balance in evaluating those two statements did Eric Menendez lie to the police what is significant to you about the statements of August 21st and September what is significant to me um more so in the September because it's a longer interview is that there was one misstatement made about seeing a Batman movie but more likely than not not only were the statements true the statements placed him at the scene of the crime and that some of the statements were indicators both of confession as well as guilt now when you're saying that the statement placed him at the scene of the crime obviously he was at the scene of the crime and he and his brother called 911 is that what you mean no that's not what I mean what do you mean he was also at the death scene and are you saying that he's telling the police I was there when my parents were killed yes I believe how does he do that he does that because he uh several of the statements speak to sensory stimulation and memory and specifically by that I mean the smelling of the smoke uh that does come through both on the first uh interview he says he smelled smoke later in the interview a few pages later he says that something about being four hours before so clearly being able to smell smoke is something that he would have had to have been there to have smelled okay so if I understand you say he is actually giving them these clues that he's there yes he is and what follow-up questions do the officers ask in August and September to his Revelation that he both saw and smelled smoke right as to the objection it's irrelevant objection State well is there any further discussion do the police ask as a crime scene evaluator the suspect told you that he was not at the scene of the crime he had arrived two hours after the shooting and yet he smelled smoke and saw smoke um as a person who's evaluating crime scenes would that be of significance to you sustain I'd like to approach on this issue your honor there's no need she has no expertise in gunshot gunshots or use of firearms she said that protection I don't believe that's well that's not the issue upon which I want toach it would seem to be isn't reading my mind now is oh jeez such talent go ahead and ask your next question the fact that she could kind of get away with that and like make the courtroom laugh is is like that that there was a moment there where I wasn't sure if uh if things were going to get hairy between her and the judge definitely bring in some SP at this point um in the courtroom people are either comfortable or uncomfortable but I mean that could have gone a very different way you understood that the implication of Mrs bazan's statements was that Eric mandz was lying to you did you not yes you understood from her recitation of other questions that she's implying that he is a liar in talking to to the police in this case yes do you find instances where he is virtually confessing sustain the answer do you find instances where he is telling the police truth about family the same truth that he told you sister did he tell you the truth that he killed his parents and how it happened I would like to appro well well you know I I she's got she's gotten she's kind of gotten stuck in some quick sand here every single objection every single question that she's asking is met with an objection and every objection is getting is getting sustained and I don't think that this is really you know bias against the defense here the questions that she's asking are objectionable right it is it is actually speculation for for this witness to be able to tell you know what is the truth right the truth that's like like the whole point of the jury being here and and hearing all of the evidence and hearing from all these these Witnesses so if she just took out that portion of the question like did he tell you the truth you know did he tell you you know that he he he you know killed his parents in this way XYZ that's what the the jury is going to ultimately agree is the truth but just take that out of your sentence and then you are no longer asking your witness to speculate all right we're about to resume just uh a point of reference ladies and gentlemen um we had anticipated let me back up the lawyers told me that they would finish this examination this morning and we're still at it uh this afternoon so um uh it's taking quite a bit longer than anticipated and it's unfortunate because we had the other jury come in today and we had expected to get to them this morning and we're still hugging away this this afternoon so they're waiting in the wing so hopefully we'll finish this fairly quickly so we can get on with the next phase of the trial and once we finish with this witness I'll give you a little more information about the scheduling your situation right you may continue your examination okay would you uh relate to us which things that Eric said Eric Mendez said to the police on the 17th were significant in your evaluation of him yes um on nove on uh September 17th um just start reading just tell us what was significant if you need to rely th those are that's the statement itself that you've marked yes okay go right ahead okay on page eight it's a pair of jeans I have like lumps here and then he says a hole comes out here back here and a hole comes out back here almost like a bullet hole or something now What's significant that is telling the police that he has jeans that may have a bullet hole this is the first spontaneous statement he's made in eight pages and he goes on and explains it and he really wants to show the police officer these jeans objection suain that portion of the answer is Str does he tell the police he wants to show the M yes he does okay what's the next significant then okay the next significant point point is where he talks about um there was a lot of smoke in the room and the next is from what I remember I mean I thought about it three million times in my mind it wasn't loud did you notice the TV and then he goes into the okay point about the TV let me point out to you Dr you don't have to clarify which stat this one the uh no this is uh September 17th New Jersey the New Jersey interview Dr B you don't have to read the statement you can summarize the particular piece of it that you're relying on now this particular piece that you just talked about where he said he's thought about it three million times does that have any and he had talked about the smoke in the room does that have any significance to you yes it does and what does that tell you it's a recurring intrusive thought that is specifically about what he saw okay and would you expect that in recurring intrusive thought about what he saw if this was a cool calculated planned homicide for money well is that significant in your conclusion the prosecution's just been probing that this was not that this was a crime of high emotionality and low thinking yes why because if he had high thinking low emotionality this would not be something that would be coming into his mind it would have been done if it was a plan it would have been done it would have been over with and it wouldn't have been thought about three million times in a three-week period are you finding in that statement that there is a traumatic effect of this incident on air yes and would you expect a crime that was planned for the purpose of money to have a traumatic effect overall no I did not expect that what is the next um indication in that statement that you or the next statement by Eric Mendez in that statement that you found significant okay on the same page as I smell the smoke every day and is that like the previous statement yes he repeats that he didn't have to okay um again uh just going on to the next page he now gives a description it was like a slow Haze the room was like dark yellow it was like a full slick Haze and sitting from there what I remembered so he goes now into what he sees as well as what he smells and what's the significant if he's now telling the police this three times that he saw the smoke and he saw the face he is really telling what in his I mean this is his telling what's in his mind okay so and this says that he is right back at that crime and do you think this is part of the story that he and his brother were supposed to tell the police assistant do you had any well Mrs banic asked you about his ability to tell this story that he and his brother had decided to tell the police after the crime remember that any indic that as part of the story they were going to tell the police that they saw smoke and smelled smoke no is that the kind of pre planned Alibi that you're familiar with with organized Killers no do organized Killers try to give away the fact that they've been at the scene of crime at the time of death based on your research in the literature to organized Killers give away the fact that they're present at the time yeah you've talked about just to to seg you off here for a second talked about this notion that what uh Eric and L Menendez told the police spec going to the movies and then going to meet somebody in Santa Monica do not fit your definition of an ala yes did any part of that story okay that that they told that we went to the movies and we went to Santa Monica actually covered them for the time of the shooting rephrase the question yes what is an alibi an alibi is something that uh you you give so that it covers you for a period of time when something happened it means you're someplace else someplace else yes okay and it's a way to establish is it not that you're someplace else yes now are you aware of the fact that in this state they don't lock the doors to movie theaters well the question is is she aware of that fact I'm not well have you ever been in a movie theater where you've been locked in no is it your understanding and belief that if you go into a movie theater even in Los Angeles you can leave you can leave okay and is it your notion of an alibi to tell the police that you were at some place to meet somebody when you didn't meet the person right that doesn't make sense and when the person will know that you weren't there at the time that the shooting occurred yes is that your idea of an alibi no that's not my idea of an alibi now is it necessary in order to create an alibi that you have to create a Ruckus in a residential neighborhood with two shotguns no and Mrs bazer suggest in her question that the they use shotguns to make a lot of noise yes does that make sense to you with respect to creating an alabon sustained as to the form of question is that something that you believe is uh Preparatory to creating an alabon no is that Preparatory to getting caught red-handed just is that the kind of activity that you've categorized as a disorg crime scene with a high risk of detection yes now you have indicated that in making uh your assessment or evaluation of Eric Menendez and in assessing his credibility whether you believe what he's telling you you consider the fact that he's in jail faced with a very serious crime yes I did is it your opinion that because a person in is in jail he could not have been sexually molested by the person he killed no is it your opinion that there is usually a reason or a cause for homicide yes is it your opinion in this case that the sexual molestation of Eric Mendez was an original ating cause for these homicides yes it is you were asked whether or not all secretive families are families in which incest or abuse is going on yes and I believe you said no that's correct are most however incestuous and abusive families secretive yes they are is Secrets the way that abuse continues yes it is and did you find an examining all the information in this case that this was a highly secretive family yes I did R can we take that break because I have to make that phone call how much longer do you have I have about 20 25 minutes and you committed to that call at this hour I'm committed to the phone call yes but not to what the phone call wants yeah okay let's take a five minute break only five minutes going here so at five minutes after the hour we'll continue don't discuss the matter with anyone don't form any final opinions about it five after three is when we return we have all the jurors back you may continue your cross your redirect examination rather thank you your honor uh concerning the interview that Eric Mendez had with thece release on September 17th um was there a passage in that interview that you recall when Eric was talking about when he was little yes and was there something significant to you about that passage in that statement yes what was he without reading it basically what was he telling the police he essentially talked about when he was younger and little and he used to love everything but as one as getting older it gets life is colder and did that uh suggest something to you about what was going on in his state of his mind at that time yes what was that uh this what was going on in his mind had to do with Reflections on what his life had been it's a pretty clear statement of that is it also a reflection of that he has hurt someone yes that certainly is present too do you recall um his asking detect itive zoler uh two questions during the course of that interview the first one being would the police have shot me if I came out with a gun yes and was that a significant statement to you concerning whether he's part of him at least is telling the truth yes and do you recall his also asking detective zoler whether or not the police had figured out that it was someone that they they meaning his parents knew yes he did say that and does that bear on the same issue yes that bears on the total interview do you recall his telling the police in that statement about his mother having bought a gun and about arguments in the family yes do you recall his telling detective zoler in that statement that he wanted to get away from his father that he wanted to go to college and to live at the dorms yes that is in the statement now is there anything that he says in that either the statement of August 21st or the statement of September SE uh 17th where he is suggesting that any other people bodies or entities may be responsible for the killing of his parents does he say anything about anybody else being involved no he does not does he Direct the police to look into any other areas of his parents lives a state are there any words in that statement that tell them look at his business it might be the mob it must have been a burglary anything like that no that is not present in the statement now you indicated that the things that you look to in evaluating Eric's credibility had to do with context of the statement the details that he gave and how those details fit into your wide understanding of root patterns of child molestation is that correct that's correct was there also anything about I think you said on cross-examination you also looked at what you called aect yes what is aect affect is the emotional um response that you can see sometimes called demeanor but it w is when does the person smile laugh cry frown is you know can you read if you will an emotion and in evaluating a person who has uh uh made a statement to you about child abuse are there certain emotional respons responses that you anticipate or expect if the person is being truthful you yes you generally expect some type of affect or emotion now when you're interviewing when you were interviewing Eric Mendez in the jail for these 50 hours um was that a situation in which he was under any extraordinary stress assistant in your opinion was the the situation you you were creating the atmosphere along with him were you not yes and were you trying to create an atmosphere of extreme stress no were you trying to create a different kind of atmosphere yes I was and why were you doing that I was trying to create as comfortable an atmosphere as possible so that he would be able to tell me what had happened to him regardless of what the question was with as much uh with fewer defenses than than people usually use defenses uh to be able to be genuine and emotive be able to express his emotions and was he genuine emotive and able to express his emotions during those 50 hours of interview so St rephrase the question did you find his affect during the that those 50 hours of interview to be appropriate to what he was telling yes I did and why was it appropriate because depending on what he was talking about he was able to show a fairly uh good range of emotion and it would matched the type of content He was discussing and did you think that he was acting no I did not what significance do you place if any on the fact that as a high school student he took a drama class I don't place any significance on that now is you have testified that in your opinion um at the time of the shooting of his parents Eric Mendez was uh in a state of extreme fear and operating on the B's survival mechanisms yes is that a mental state no it is not what is it that is a neurobiological state it is a normal adaptive response that the body gives forth when placed in a dangerous situation and in your analysis of the few days preceding the shootings were there varying levels of fear that in your opinion Eric Mendez was experiencing yes there were and over the course of those days at different times was he in different phases of the fear response yes he was and during the actual shootings was he in that second phase that you've talked about yes he was and is there then a third phase that I think you described he was in right after during the foyer yeah yes there was now Mrs banic has asked you about the Saturday night incident and I think you indicated that was a situation in which he neither fought nor fled that's right what was what state was he in one of the states was a freezing State he was positioned but not acting and not retreating and did that bear at all in the fact that he did not get up as Mrs banich had suggested in unlock lock the door and allow his father in so that he could then shoot him did that have any significance to you on his attitude towards his father yes and what significance did he have the significance is he did not want to shoot his father now you were asked a question about the sexual preferences if you will of Mr Mendez in every incest family where the incest perpetrator is a natural parent yes okay didn't that natural parent have to have sex with an adult member of the opposite sex in order to have a child to molest generally yes and there are of course well documented cases are there not of fatherson incest yes there are and those fathers obviously had to have sex with a female to produce that son that is correct so that doesn't tell you anything about sexual preference does it no it doesn't there you go Mrs banich asked you if you had ever contacted the pro ution to see if they had any information that you hadn't already been provided with is that correct that's correct uh you're aware of the fact are you not the prosecution has your report yes I am aware of that and you're aware are you not that for months the prosecution has had your curriculum Ved yes I'm aware of that did they ever contact you no they did not did you consider in your evaluation of The credibility of the information that Eric Mendez was giving you the fact that during his testimony none of his evidence concerning sexual molestation was impeached that's correct I understand that now concerning the issue of the expectation that Eric Mendez had about going to UCLA okay yes um Mrs ban showed you a report from a witness who has not yet testified in this case is that correct that is correct are you aware of other reports from other Witnesses who indicated that it was Mrs Menendez who wanted Eric to go to Berkeley and Mr Menendez who insisted he go to UCA that was my understanding now I think you testified at one point that over the course of those few days before the shooting there was sort of a gradual increase or heightening in the fear level that is correct in your opinion from Tuesday night when Lyall Mendez indicated that he would talk to Dad if you will about the M station of Eric through Sunday night was there a constantly increasing level of fear yes sir was and were there moments when that new level would Abate somewhat yes there were and then would something else happen and that would raise it to yet another level yes that is correct and is that why you talk about the events of Sunday night being cumulative yes it is when you were analyzing um all the information that you had in particularly the inform well strike that I think you indicated that in in response to a question from Mrs banage concerning those five critical factors in those days that you didn't just analyze um you didn't just make an uh render an opinion on what Eric was feeling if you will at the time of the shootings based on those five days but um on everything else you had looked at that is correct and what did you mean by that what I meant by that was um I went through all of the materials that had come in from the prosecution side uh all of the interviews that I could have available especially the police interview um any kinds of reports that were available and when you're talking about the the consistency of the behavior of Eric Mendez during those last few days are you viewing that through the prism if you will of his lifelong relationship with his parents yes I am now what was your understanding if any concerning when the particular bed that Eric had moved from The Beverly Hills house to his house was purchased I don't know when it was purchased so you don't know how long he had owned that no I don't do you believe in I mean in your professional opinion um you have talked about children who are the victims of abuse developing coping mechanisms rescue fantasy other mechanisms correct yes um is it common that that among these children that there is a point particularly in adolescent when for whatever reason they just cannot take it anymore yes and did you see such a point being reached in Eric mendez's line yes and what was that point the point was um certainly at at the at the point that he was preparing to get out on his own and go to school go to college and so he had had a mechanism to get him to that point yes he had and when that mechanism failed what did he have when that mechanism failed he was completely um all of his hopes and all of his wishes were now collapsed and that would now require a rethinking or a re uh trying to find some new way of coping given the history of this family and its interactions was his turning to his brother a a logical or an appropriate or a predictable thing that he would do under those circumstances can how do you understand his turning to his brother at that time I saw this as a logical choice for him someone he found in the family he had always um idolized his older brother there certainly has been testimony about how much he would write about his brother and this was a very solid um bond that he now was working on to um get him out of that situation and to move forward and from the perspective of how he was raised in this family was it an irrational act for Eric Mendez to rely on his older brother no sustain the answer St was it an understandable act given the history of this family did he have in your opinion based on everything you know anyone else that it would have been logical for him to turn to yeah that's no now you were asked by Mrs banic about Dr oil and this waiver that mran mentioned yes you recall Dr oil himself admitting that there were other waivers besides the one that was admitted into evidence yes I remember that do you remember Dr oil testifying on the stand and revealing himself to be an absolute quack of a doctor yes I remember that and did you I think you testify that um you could understand uh a child molester allowing this child to go to a psychologist particularly in the context where there's going to be waivers of confidential confidentiality is that correct that is correct you had talked about this pattern of of molestation and incest particularly behaviors in families of one where efforts are made to make sure the child keeps the secret yes as the child gets older do the strategies usually change yes and why is that because as the child develops they're going to be additional uh aspects that come into into being and so that there can be a remodification of some of the coping what worked younger may not work when they're older I'm talking about it though from the perspective of the perpetrator if you will if a child has lived with a secret and as far as the perpetrator knows kept the secret year in and year out now an adolescent okay yes is it more likely or less likely that that child is now trained to keep the secret oh yes the child will keep the secret yes so would there be less anxiety about the child revealing the secret at that point yes the answer do you think Jose Menendez well do you think any child molester in an incest family would be as concerned about a child who had kept to secing for 10 years versus one who had not suain did you see based on everything you knew about this family any particular risk to Jose Menendez that the secret was going to be revealed by sending Eric Mendez to a doctor oil who would go along with a non-confidential therapy of an adolescent sister would you ever take an adolescent into therapy where you suspected or you had reason to suspect abuse and agree to share that therapy with a parent is that appropriate practice why doesn't matter that that she's getting objected to and those objections are getting sustained at this point because she's just putting that question in front of the jury so long as the jury's actually paying attention at this point it's been a very long bit of testimony um you know for us like we're relatively fresh because we're coming back into this but remember remember the judge's comments that like he's like really wanted all of this to be you know finished this morning before lunch and yet here we are um so you know that the jury might not be paying attention but if they are in fact paying attention um this is just this is just Leslie putting putting those thoughts in in the jury's in the juror's brains you know to be like I mean is this appropriate no probably not I think you don't have to be a psychologist to to really have an opinion on that um but but yeah it's just it's it is funny to see when when Leslie doesn't really care what the objection is going to be and she kind of knows it's going to get sustained she just wants to put the question in front of the the the jury anyway I didn't you okay um you indicated you didn't contact Dr oil correct did you have a lot of material concerning Dr oil's relationships with a number of different people besides Mr Menendez yes I did and did you read all that material yes I did and you said that you uh believe that the notes that you had of Dr oil's were not original notes but reconstructed from memory is that correct that is correct are those notes upon which you as a professional would ever rely no they're not would you rely on the opinion of Dr oil based on everything you know about him no I would not I have nothing further on any recross I'm going to object to that that is absolutely untr to approach on this ISS all right again you're arguing the matter before you do approach which is obvious basically Leslie you don't get sidebars if you take snide bars you got to pick one ask question oh man 1993 recordings do you understand is improper Ru objection over rule you ask the question rule Ru oh jeez correct say you're citing proposition 115 objection question yes um my understanding is my report was made available before my testimony I don't know precisely how many how long but I know it was made AV before I testified a question answer all right just rephrase a question I'm not aware of how how that would work I really don't know I I did not contact prosecution anyse ex let me see council at the sidebar here in discussing the matter with uh the lawyers they indicate that the next two witnesses um who are to testify will be before the gold jury and not uh you folks and um the way things have gone and the way time estimates have been um regardless of what they say it seems that uh we won't need you for the balance of the week this is Wednesday and these other two witnesses uh probably would take the rest of the week uh to finish um there's a problem with one of the gold jurors Friday afternoon so um the way things look now we won't be able to get back to you until Monday at nine o'clock okay well we are gonna end that there and we are going to move on to the next witness and okay in the trial whoa I forgot about that uh it is louder I'm going to turn down my volume and I'm going to turn up well turn down my computer volume turn up my actual volume like my my mic I should say okay so I am now louder and that should be balanced properly with them um uh KK gon what what is a gold jury uh so there there are two jury juries sorry there are two juries in this trial it's technically two trials happening at the same time uh one of the jur juries is the jury for Eric Mendez the other one is the jury for ly Menendez one is gold one is blue I had to write them down the gold jury is ly's jury the blue jury is Eric's jury so that's um that's what that is also there are a few other questions that I have here uh km how long was this trial this trial it was it was quite a few weeks um someone in the chat may have already answered this but this was it was it was pretty long it was pretty long um sorry I I when if I can find a more concrete answer I will uh I'll I'll update that um oh like five months everday sheep okay yeah that's that's that's a long it's a long trial it's been taking us a a minute to get through Draco Amy is it common for there to be questionable experts I remember the guy in uh amber her or Johnny de versus Amber herd trial who was a clown too yeah it's fairly common it's fairly common I mean this is when it comes to experts it's like you're you're able to generally find someone someone who can who can testify as some kind of an expert who is you know willing to be to testify somewhat favorably towards your side the question is just how good of an expert witness are they some of them are quacker than others how far down into the barrel do you need to scrape to find an expert based on the facts of the case you know that's that's something that that is a factor at times um it's oftentimes an indication of of how good or bad your facts are link Journey what are your thoughts on the Mendes Brothers trying to get a new trial to have the charges dropped manslaughter because of their father's sa do they have a case um well this one is hard because what they're trying to argue is is on two points number one there's uh Roy Roso a member of menudo came forward um some time ago I think maybe around a year ago now um and basically said these things happen to me um and you know this is this is the guy that did it it's Jose Menendez um and they're very very very similar things to what Eric and Lyle say happened to them um so that is one of the things that is that is helpful to their case and that they are arguing that this is a this is a reason why they should either get a new trial or have have their sentence vacated they probably want their sentence vacated rather than going through a third trial um the other part is that they they said that they found a letter that was from Andy cono their cousin who was really good friends with Eric men Eric had written a letter to Andy basically referring to a bunch of the abuse and saying you know this stuff is happening again and it's worse never before and it basically if you read it it sounds really terrible really it really does sound terrible that that you know it sounds like Eric Eric is is writing to him in real time about these things that that really seem to very very strongly suggest what the allegations were and so this would give a a timeliness kind of corroborative um effect to the allegations with which the prosecution here was saying you guys made this up because you're being charged for murder you you'll do anything to try to get out of murder um and so that's that's um that's that's what that is going towards now the problem with the letter as as far as I see it is they would have had notice of that letter because Eric's the one that wrote it even if he forgot that he wrote it the fact that he wrote it means that he should have had some kind of knowledge of its existence the difference between that and the Roy Roso bit is that they wouldn't have any way of knowing about those allegations I don't think they even knew him personally so like there's there's no there's no way for them to have had any sort of control over that evidence coming in in any format before now the letter you know also is has has here hearsay issues and you know that usually is circumvented by the fact that you can just testify about it Andy cono himself also testified in court so you know so that there's there's issues with with that letter that I I don't see that being a very strong argument the Roy Roso one is a is a stronger argument I don't know I don't know I don't know how convincing that's going to be but I do remember um the judge in this case around a year ago again I think it was around a year ago basically writing to the LA County DA's office saying like uh please explain to me why no one looked more closely at this allegation about about Jose Menendez before you guys went to trial essentially and I haven't seen anything since then there hasn't been any real reporting on it um at least not that I've come across and so so it's been it's been very very interesting to to sort of that and then kind of nothing I don't know what's happened in the case since then but that's basically that my my thoughts are it's really hard to get an appeal it's really hard to to win an appeal I should say um and especially if it's something like you know to to vacate sentencing um but I mean I don't blame them for at the very least trying all right Niko kisi question shouldn't oil's notes be here say prosecution is asserting that the brothers planned to murder and murder their parents and are using the notes proof not sure if I understood um yeah usually that's the case us usually usually it's you know someone's doctor's notes don't come in on their own um because you can just have the the the doctor testifying to them that's why Amber herd's um like nurses notes or whatever that were that were basically taking down her self-serving her self- serving um like statements were not allowed in because they were they were hearsay so um yeah that should be the case all right then let me see here I just want to make sure I haven't missed anything all right okay let's continue on here this is the case of people versus Lyall Menendez he is in court with his attorney both attorneys and the people are represented and our jury is in the courtroom hi evening I think you're entitled to an explanation oh no uh well because you've been so good and patient we put you in the jury box how's that um the estimates that we've had in regards to when we would be finished with the other witness uh involving the other defendant took a were Incorrect and it took longer much longer than I had been informed would it would take and uh it finally concluded this afternoon so we're now ready to start up with you folks and we'll uh be in session the balance of today and tomorrow and Friday morning Friday afternoon one of the jurors on your panel has to be elsewhere so we won't be in session Friday afternoon but we'll be with you the balance of the week until Friday afternoon and um um only you will be here the other jury will not be here for the balance of the week um it's important uh that you not be concerned about what uh occurs in the courtroom when the other jury is in the courtroom and you're not in the court room because as I've told you many times you must make your decision based only on the evidence presented to you in the trial while you're in the courtroom and the instructions I give you on the law um what we'll do now is proceed with um the testimony for the defendant Eric men or TR that the defendant ly Menendez you'll see Eric NZ in the courtroom as well but uh his jury is not and you should be aware that this testimony is only being received as to the defendant for whom you will make a decision that is the defendant ly Menendez all right um is the defense ready to proceed we are all right you may call your next witness thank you the defense calls Dr Stuart Hart maying this the whole truth the TRU take stand Stuart Newton Hart h a t and your first sorry didn't realize I m i muted myself so we have a Paisley tie today and we even have elbow pads on this jacket so we've got we've got a lot of 90s action here today first name Stewart St t a RT right Dr Hart uh where are you currently employed U Indiana University and what do you do there I'm a professor there I teach courses I conduct research carry out service what types of courses do you teach a variety most of them recently have been had to do with child abuse and neglect I teach a child abuse and neglect course for educators I teach a seminar graduate seminar in psychological Mal treatment uh I'm presently teaching a Child Development and children's rights course and frequently I teach basic educational psychology courses for those who are becoming Educators there's a much wider range of courses I've taught over the years but those are the ones I emphasize now how long have you been teaching I've been to Indiana University since 1971 I was teaching in public schools uh before that since 1961 I suppose I think and how long have you had a specialty in the area of child abuse that really developed um in the early portion of 198 of the 1980s although in a sense working with as a psychologist for years before that I had to give consideration to conditions associated with child abuse did you have a clinical practice I had a clinical practice uh with a a corporation of uh a psychological Corporation or a a Service Corporation yes in Indianapolis and uh who did you treat in that practice did you treat children or children and work with their families and were these on abuse and family issues that you dealt with the well over the years including the work with schools and Consulting with schools and a variety of other agencies are you hearing voice yeah I thought I was hearing something uh work with families certainly in which uh the uh the psychological treatment has been destructive yeah and you have um a bachelor's a master's and a PhD in the area of psychology and education is that correct that's right and in your um your work at the University now are you the director of the office for the study of psychological rights of the children of the child yes and can you tell me what that is that uh Center was was developed following the international year of the child in 1979 I chaired the task International task force that developed the Declaration for the psychological rights of the child and brought that back to the United States and my University and a National Association decided that we needed the national Center to be concerned about uh children's rights issues and so it's a center that conducts research that reviews um literature variety of that works with professionals and Specialists all over the country to try to clarify uh children's rights issues and uh child abuse and neglect issues and do you hold any professional licenses uh yes as a psychologist in the state of Indiana may still I I think I may still have a teacher's license too but I'm not absolutely sure CH and do you serve as a a consultant occasionally in addition to teaching and chairing various organizations yes and have you served on a number of committees task for task force Etc with regard to prevention of child abuse identifying child abuse defining certain types of child abuse yes and were you a Committee Member of the National Committee on the for the prevention of child abuse I worked on their uh committee or subcommittees dealing with psychological Mal treatment and and participated in the development of uh different forms of published communication yes and have you done some work on an international basis in this area I've uh made presentations on the topic of psychological Mal treatment um in other parts of the world and done a lot of children's rights work and are you currently involved in an organization uh that is connected with the United Nations yes I'm a representative to the non-governmental organizations uh for the convention on the rights of the child uh an organization that helped uh in part to draft uh sections of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child and continues to work to see that the convention is implemented effectively around the world it's made up of uh uh many kinds of professional and child oriented organizations and does that group meet periodically generally meets twice a year and has it met twice this year I think it's actually met more than twice this year but um because it works very close it it tries to coordinate its meetings with the meetings of the United Nations committee for the rights of the child and I believe it has met more than uh once in the last year and did you recently return from such a meeting yes and where was that meeting held in uh Geneva Switzerland and who else is a member of that particular group so there save the children uh International Catholic child Bureau the uh defense for children International and a wide variety of other organizations that are are there representatives of other countries oh yes uh but they they represent particularly International organizations non-governmental organizations but the people who come there uh come from uh all over the world to represent those organizations and in the past have you served as the regional director for the National Association of school psychology IST yes and have you been president of the National Association of school psychologists yes and did you chair the child development and services Committee of the International Association of school psychologists yes were you president of the International School psychology association yes and have you served as an associate editor on a journal called School psychology International yes are you still serving on that in that capacity yes can you tell me what it means to be an editor or an associate editor of a journal is this a professional Journal yes let me ask some foundational questions if I may I'm sorry um who what is the readership of this journal who's it written for it's written for child educational school psychologists all over the world and what types of materials are published in that journal well theoretical um articles uh giving some perspective on some issue uh of Child Development um articles that describe research that's been done and articles that describe uh practices that are developing and how do articles come to be published in a journal such as this they are sent to the uh uh to the journal's office and then uh the editors uh disseminate those to uh individuals who are expected to read them carefully and uh make evaluations and make recommendations about whether the Articles should be published or not who are the people who read these I mean am I going to get these articles in the mail or do you have to have some particular no no you have to be someone who's recognized and respected in regard to the issues that that particular Journal is concerned about and that particular profession and is that referred to as peer review yes and so once these articles are submitted then people who are recognized as experts in the field read them and see if they seem to have some Merit yes is that correct and as an associate editor are you called upon to read and review material of that sort yourself yes um actually for that particular Journal I I have uh haven't had many of those but I certainly have for other journals okay so you're called upon to review the work of your colleagues before they're published another Journal and in addition to reviewing the work of other people in your field uh do you write and publish material yourself yes and do you submit uh those articles for the type of review that you've described here yes and have you uh written a number of Articles which have then been published yes I have and are they in this same F that is the area of child abuse and psychological Mal treatment they're in that area yes okay and in fact um your uh your resume if you will contains a list of 48 such Publications that sound well that sounds about right uh they probably go across U child abuse neglect and psychological maltreatment and children's rights issues and have you also published material which has become part of textbooks that are used yes and is the treatment of f Family Violence one such textbook it's a book that probably be is being used as a text in a variety of places I'm not I don't have the information to indicate to me what it usage is and did you write material that was published in the absct handbook on child abuse and neglect yes i' I've written material for that that handbook is still in process and ABAC which is all capital letters a c what does that stand for American professional Society on the abuse of children and what is that organization it's uh the national professional it's a National Association that focuses on the theory conditions research practice uh relative to child abuse and neglect it is the association that's made up of professionals such as Physicians and psychologists and social workers and so on and you've made presentations also haven't you in in uh this field and and uh related fields yes and I have 55 listed on the CV that you gave me does that sound accurate that sounds about right to me okay and included in here are many of the uh of the States but in addition you've listed that you made presentations in Turkey Brazil Slovakia Canada England Switzerland and Sweden is that correct and Germany and Germany have you also conducted research in this area and what type of research have you conducted well the the two uh that uh I've been been working on recently actually there there several of them I the research has been on the area of psychological Mal treatment of children and in the areas of uh in the area of children's rights and were you given a grant by the United States Department of Health and Human Services yes uh to do some work yes and did you do some research with regard to juvenile court and Family Court judges yes and what was that work basically that uh was an attempt to determine what the perspectives of juvenal and family court judges are on their experience in dealing with uh psychological Mal treatment children and did you also do a study of childhood experiences of juvenile offenders yes that uh it's another study did you recently make a presentation to the Boy Scouts of America yes in September and what was that they the Boy Scouts had u a national conference on child abuse and neglect and it was a conference in which they invited all of the or many of the other child service organizations in the Country Girl Scouts and YMCA and 4 and so on and they the Boy Scouts asked me to give two workshops on psychological maltreatment of children that is I mean it that is kind of kind of wild given what has happened with the organization since 1993 there have been a lot of allegations of abuse within the organization and let's be real sa kind of stuff so it it's kind of wild for that to come up like like little do they know what is going to happen in BSA in the future very interesting now you've referred to this this concept of psychological Mal treatment yes is that a uh a term that has been used for a long time or when was it developed no it um that term began to be used more and more after 1983 before that uh there were a variety of terms used for this mental injury emotional abuse emotional neglect so they so psychological maltreatment emotional Mal treatment emotional neglect Encompass the same area psychological Mal treatment encompasses all of the others uh the importance of that term is that it recognizes uh both those um acts uh which are acts of commission doing something to someone and acts of omission uh withholding Behavior or conditions that someone needs and that it goes across both those things that are have to to do with the emotions or the affective States and those things that have to do with uh cognitive States in thinking and give some consideration certainly the motivation which combines certainly those two is there a psychological Mal treatment component of sexual abuse of children yes and is there a psychological maltreatment component of physical abuse of children yes is there a recognized definition of this term psychological Mal treatment there have been a uh many many definitions in this area that was one of the major problems that the field had to deal with and why child protective services and many of the people concerned about child R in this country it felt that not much progress was being made because there were not there was not a set uh that was generally supported and agreed upon and uh during the last um 10 years uh some genuine progress was made in that area and now there is a set of categories and definitions that uh enjoy rather wide support and that give then those concerned with this area a common uh the opportunity to work from a common base or a common perspective so that they when they're talking about something they understand each other a little better who developed this definition uh it's the the major contribution to it uh was the research that was conducted for uh the Department of Health and Human Services and the national Center on child abuse neglect which uh my office um was responsible for and if you look over your right shoulder you will see a board which has a chart do you have the small smaller copies with you refer to and on that exhibit your honor I'll I don't have the number right off hand but I'll get it later um does it does that exhibit list exhibit 295 295 thank you does that list various types of psychological Mal treatment it lists the major categories uh the first six um have a good deal of uh theoretical expert opinion and research support behind them the the first five excuse me the last one uh was uh derived from the others uh so that because it's an area that's been given so much traditional consideration that it seemed important to to pull though that out of the other category so people would be sure that it was being covered and are these uh these categories of behavior which there is some consensus that they have some Nega negative impact on the child if they're subjected to them yes that's right these are the the acts of or these labels uh present the categories that there are the actual acts of psychological maltreatment and so they and they are of concern because they are understood to uh be damaging uh to people who experience them and are is it true that a number of the acts that fall in these categories are verbal acts that is there are things that are said uh in in all cases uh there can be acts that are verbal that are associated with those or that Express uh those particular areas uh probably well I'll I'll make an exception in a sense the denying emotional needs it's not it's not an exception clearly but often it refers to situation in which there is actually not much being said at all or much being done you've heard the childhood expression of sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me yes yes um is that uh is that a true statement No in fact um I I'm trying to remember now there was a film there was produced recently that actually ended that phrase with but words can hurt forever which many people understand in their common experience and which um many uh really quite a good U percentage of those working in child abuse neglect work understand is the case it's so interesting that question just feels like such a 1990s question um like to be to be brought in in in that sort of way because it just I know for some reason as soon as she asked it I was like that feels like an attitude that a lot of people would have had in the 1990s that don't necessarily that people don't necessarily have today I mean people talk a lot about how how words can be very impactful on other people and how they can they can harm other people and things like that so it's just it's it's very interesting to see like the different kind of perspective now with regard to the first category which is reject ing or degrading is there a commonly accepted explanation or definition of that category well the one that uh that we've produced and that we keep refining through work with experts around the country uh is that um rejecting and degrading includes verbal and non-verbal parent or caretaker acts that reject and degrade the child meaning things like like belittling uh hostile rejecting treatment shaming ridiculing the child for normal behavior consistently singling a child out to be criticized and punished publicly humiliating a child those are some of the different facets of rejecting and degrading and when you talk about terrorizing or endangering what are you referring to there well here we're talking about um Behavior caraker parent parental behavior that threatens uh or is likely to physically hurt kill abandon or place the child in the child or the or the child's loved ones and objects in recognizably dangerous situations and it has a number of subcategories too that give it uh further definition so does that and sorry um I you guys Pro may have caught this may may not have but at the beginning of this testimony the judge did say this is in front of L's jury only so the last witness Dr Amber Jess was just in front of Eric's jury this is only in front of lyall's jury so keep that in mind he's going to be talking about specifically what Lyall went through is that does it include actually being violent against the child physical yes it includes both acts of violence that are actually carried out and those that are threatened toward the individual himself or herself or toward loved ones or objects that are of importance to that person and is there a belief that um scaring a child um on any kind of a regular basis even if you don't do physical harm to them may be psychologically damaging to them yes with regard to isolating can you explain what that is yes those are acts that consistently deny the child opportunities to meet needs for interacting with or communicating with peers or adults inside or outside the home can mean confining the child placing unreasonable limitations on the child's freedom of movement in his environment placing unreasonable limitations or restrictions on the child's social interactions within the home or placing unreasonable limitations or restrictions on social interaction with peers or adults in the community is there another category called exploiting or corrupting yes and could you tell us what that is yes that uh includes acts that encourage the child to develop inappropriate behaviors that would be self-destructive or antisocial or criminal or deviant and that can include then U modeling permitting or encouraging such antisocial Behavior or modeling permitting or encouraging developmentally inappropriate behavior behavior that doesn't fit the developmental characteristics of the child also um Sarah V member for nine months thanks so much for being a member for nine whole months uh with a member chat so happy to be here wonderful thank you so much for both being a member and being here and hanging out with us while we while we watch this trial on the chart I've used the words Deni denying emotional needs uh I believe that's not your choice of words for that category is that correct right and what is yours denying emotional responsiveness um in other words the child is not responses are not provided to the child as the child expresses needs or expresses fears or concerns or emotions tries to in one way or another involve somebody else in interacting with them uh so when you're being detached or uninvolved uh either through incapacity or lack of motivation or interacting only when absolutely necessary or failing to express affection caring and love for the child would be subcategories that area and the last one which is denying mental educational or medical needs yes and that focuses um rather clearly I I think on uh situations in which a child is having problems or or needs that fall into one of those areas uh then that those problems or needs deserve attention and the attention is not being given to them is it the uh the perspective or the consensus of the people in your field that all of these types of behaviors do damage to children yes were you asked to make an evaluation of ly menendez's life experiences as a child in terms of the categories that you have listed here I was asked to make a an evaluation of his life experiences uh in regard to uh psychological Mal treatment uh but um I wasn't asked specifically to use these categories that would be my choice when were you first contacted with regard to working on this case January of 92 I believe and what were you requested to do well that first Contact was one in which um you and a colleague uh came to uh to talk with me at a conference on child abuse and neglect and you uh asked me to to think about uh uh this uh case that you're working on and to indicate if there was U if it would seem to make sense uh for me or or for people to become involved in it in some way in dealing with the child abuse neglect issues and what was the next step of involvement after the next step in involvement as I remember it was that I uh called you and said that uh that I thought uh that that this might be uh something useful to do and that I had been involved in developing a a national Consortium uh to deal with the issues of psychological Mal treatment and that group which was concerned about all of of the individuals uh of that group volunteers were concerned about policy issues and standards and practices regard to psychological Mal treatment uh would be helped uh by coming uh by having a chance to work closely on some cases of psychological Mal treatment that were uh of concern to any variety of parties but certainly those that would be concerned to a lawyers in courts which could run across child custody issues child ab and neglect issues criminal cases and so on now how many people are there in this uh this group that you referred to the Consortium 13 and who selected these individuals they were selected uh primarily by myself and a colleague uh two or three colleagues probably uh who had worked together uh over a number of years on psychological M treatment issues and who discussed then by telephone face-to-face meetings uh what sort of a what membership uh might be helpful uh to clarifying the uh the issues associated with psychological Mal treatment to making progress in dealing with it and so we jointly developed a list of names and what was the criteria for that list of names criteria was that uh these would be people who were highly respected and uh particularly in association with child abuse and neglect issues and also in their own fields and that they were people who had been doing work in child abuse and neglect and would have uh an interest then in in volunteering their time to work cooperatively toward uh advancing the knowledge State and practices now in order to have this group review this case was a document prepared which contained a number of incidents over various developmental developmental periods in L mandez's life yes uh I I requested that uh uh information that was available that seemed to be relevant to this area be put into a uh organized so that uh it was it gave attention to the different stages or phases of development that's right and did you submit this information to a group of these individuals to be reviewed yes did you identify who it was they were evaluating no did you identify the fact that they were charged with the crime no that L Menendez is charged with here no they didn't know uh the identity of the individual or the nature of the condition of concern or what part of the country it came from now when they were given this document with all of these incidents on it where they asked to make some sort of an evaluation yes with regard to that what was that evaluation they were asked to determine whether with the information available to them it appeared that psychological maltreatment uh was likely to have been a an important a major uh contributor significant contributor uh to the to the uh experiences and development of that individual and so the Assumption was that uh that these incidents were true is that correct if true what would this mean for this indiv yes we didn't know uh whether they were true or not we assumed that uh um the information being given to us was was probably true but that wasn't the question the question was if this is true then would uh psychological Mal treatment be considered to be a significant um part of the life of this person and was this group asked to rate it in terms of whether it would be mild or moderate or severe psychological Mal treatment was there any sort of evaluation of that nature yes and what was the result of the evaluation of the factors submitted with regard to lman endez the consensus was that uh yes uh if this was the background of that person then psychological Mal treatment would be expected to be a significant uh influence on the development of that person and how was it rated with regard to mild or moderate as as severe once the committee reached that or Consortium reached that determination um did you then take further steps yes uh within it's important to understand that there's only a subgroup group of the Consortium that is available to work on cases that might be going to court and uh what we had decided was that when there were cases presented to us uh that uh for which a psychological Mal treatment appeared to be an important factor that then we would indicate to the people that who had presented that case uh whether or not we had any people in the Consortium that could be available to become more um intensely involved in that case to be specifically involved in working on on that case to clarify it further and um sorry was there such a person identified yes we uh I was identified at that point and did you then proceed to do the remainder of the um intensive work on this case yes and during the course of that were you still in contact with other members of the Consortium to review the work that was being done yes now when you agreed to take the next step with regard to this case what was asked of you what was your task my task was to um evaluate uh the experiences of L mes Menendez and growing up uh to determine uh the uh psychological maltreatment uh relevancy to them now for the purposes of the review You've described you operated on the assumption that the facts submitted to you were true is that correct for the initial review for the initial review yes when you began the Second Step were you operating on the assumption that the information provided to you was true or was that part of your goal was to evaluate it no at that point uh if my point of view was that uh I was to start fresh and to uh make a determination of the degree to which whatever information I found was true and in connection so that is a really important Point here because you know that the the on cross- examination they're going to they're going to try to hammer that in to try to be like well you just assumed that everything was correct right you just you just took Lyle L what Lyall said at B value right to basically try to try to make this witness look like they're a paid hack you know so so this this question was important to say okay at the very beginning your your first intake you assumed everything was true right yeah yeah yes I did and then after that what happened well then I I took a step back to see if there was actually truth to these claims so that's like I said that's that's an important point for the for the defense to point out here for the jury with that were you provided with school and medical records review and to your knowledge were you provided with all of the school records and all of the medical records that were available to my knowledge yes and were you provided with a number of interviews of witnesses interviews that were conducted both by the defense and by the prosecution yes I was provided with a good deal of information and did you review the school records and the medical records yes and did you read the witness interviews yes were you also provided with the records of Mrs mandez's psychological um her therapy with various therapists yes and did you read and consider those yes and you've already indicated that you were Consulting with experts during this process is that correct yes I'm wondering if if at some point she's going to ask if he reviewed Dr oil's testimony or notes or what have you and if not why not otherwise it's definitely going to come up on cross-examination because he he's the he's the star psychologist for the prosecution in this trial uh which you know I mean we love Dr oil over here right uh anyway after reading this material initially did you make a det determination that you wanted to conduct some interviews on your own yes um I was probably continuing to read the material as I made and such a a decision and did you in fact interview a number of Witnesses on your own yes who made the determination as to who would interview I did were there any limitations placed on what material would be made available to you no were there any limitations placed on which Witnesses you could interview no there were none uh placed on me from uh the attorneys that doesn't mean that that they weren't uh Witnesses I I was not able to interview is that because they refused uh well either U not not really refus so much but just simply did not U accept the opportunity I wonder if they're referring to Dr oel please just say it's Dr oel just just just tell us it's Dr oil in connection with the um selection of witnesses to be interviewed what sort of factors did you consider in determining who you would talk to yes well I had access to the uh defendant and I had access to uh these reports that you've described and I wanted to uh have an opportunity to talk with some people directly and I wanted to uh to be sure to clarify wherever I could some perspectives and there was some there was some information that simply wasn't uh available in the reports that I thought would be useful and so I wanted to speak to people who uh were related to the Menendez family who knew it as family members or extended family members uh from both sides I wanted to speak to people who knew L Menendez as um a peer a friend I wanted to speak uh to people who knew something about the family uh as outside of that scope uh teacher uh a a work associate and so on did you interview Kitty mendez's sister Joan vandermolen yes and how many times did you interview her face to face once or twice actually and by telephone probably twice how much time did you spend interviewing Joan Vander and Kitty's sister probably about seven to eight hours it's a long time across those times and why was it important to interview Mrs Vander well she knew the Menendez family had uh a direct acquaintance with them she certainly knew her sister and she knew the nature of the family in which she and her sister had grown and was that important to you to have information about the nature of the family in which Kitty Mendez was raised yes uh to have some sense of the kinds of conditions that might have influenced her perspective and her behavior and her choices why is that type of information important move on to something else please to your knowledge did did uh Kitty Mendez have two other siblings yes um two brothers Brian and Milton and did you attempt to speak with both of them no I only attempted to speak with Brian and what happened when you attempted to speak with Brian s did he agree to meet with you no were you able to interview him no was he evasive speculation sustain did you also speak to Patty Anderson yes I did and what is her connection with the family she was uh married to Brian Anderson and how long did you speak to Patty Anderson or how many times did you speak well that three times uh at least and probably four and a half to 5 hours it's a long time and did she know Kitty Mendez from high school yes and she was married to Brian Anderson Kitty mandez's yes brother and they were married for over 30 years I'm not sure a long time a long time did you also interview Brad Warner yes and what was his connection to L mandez he had had been a coach uh for ly Menendez how many times did you interview him uh just once and it's interesting to me that that the Kitty's Brothers both refused to interview with him however one of one of the sisters-in-law agreed to to speak with him it's very interesting to me because like that sometimes some I don't know if if you guys have have the experience of of you know having siblings and having those siblings be married to people and sometimes like when you have all these different Dynamics within the family between parents and siblings and you know various different directions you've got you've got a history there right you have a history sometimes there are there you know sometimes you have a great solid relationship and things go perfectly sometimes you get some Hang-Ups because of things that have happened over the years or there's just a little bit of baggage or there's you know somebody's mad at someone for a period of time those things those things do happen but it's interesting to me how often times um a especially the longer that that the sibling and their spouse are married you know they they come into the family they tend to become almost like a mediator like for their spouse or for you know for for other other people in the family you know not it's not always the case but I I have I have seen it not happen and I've seen it happen before um and so it's it's interesting to me that the sister-in-law agreed to speak with him but the brother didn't that suggest to me something happened something happened and it was too much for the brother to talk about but it was enough that the the wife the sister-in-law was able to have at least like some distance from it and was able to to talk about it um because you know she didn't have the same sort of probably didn't I mean I'm speculating here obviously yes of course so feel free to critique me and my comments on that you know with with that bit too but I'm just I'm just talking about my my Impressions and based off of you know my own experiences what I've seen within my family within friends families within you know extended extended families um but it just it it seems to me that that to me suggest something happened that the brothers or at least one of the brothers doesn't have the ability to come forward to talk about those things with a therapist with someone like this but his wife is able to it it's just it's it's interesting to me uh on on that um and I do understand folks are saying in the chat that Brian and Milton were staunchly opposed to the rest of the family Brian son Allen Anderson ended up disowning him over his whole case since Allen supports the brothers um yeah and and it I mean there could be so many reasons why why Brian and Milton would would do that because it could be that they that they had very strong strong loyalty for Kitty because of whatever may have happened and and their and their you know upbringing or their life and what they may have have seen her go through it may have been too much for them to to think about the possibility that she could have also been a villain you know or something you know there's there's a lot of there's a lot of things that could have happened there for them for them to to to either not recognize some things or to just have an allout different opinion from from everybody else or it could also be that they experienced abuse themselves and were unable to sort of square that and it was just too close to home and so rather than rather than you know come come to terms with those pieces you know better to just villainize their nephews I don't know there's there's a lot of there's a lot of possibilities there that I'm sort of identifying without without you know running down a particular Rabbit Hole um with any of these without more information but it'll be interesting to see because I think I think someone also mentioned that at least one of them maybe it was Brian or was it was it Milton one of them um uh also is going to be testifying in the rebuttal case I'm sorry I know somebody in the chat said that um I didn't I didn't uh I didn't uh save it though so I I I can't see it at the moment um so uh all right anyway uh interesting stuff and there are some questions in the chat I I'll get those in a in a in a bit and for how long two hours did you interview Terry and Carlos baralt yes and what is their relationship to the family aunt and uncle ly's aunt aunt and uncle uh the sister and brother-in-law of Jose Menendez and how many times did you interview them uh once and for how long five hours and did you interview Bob Krueger on that one probably was three hours for Carlos and five for Terry because he wasn't there when we started uh Bob Krueger yes okay and what was Bob Krueger's connection with Lyle Bob Krueger was a teacher at Princeton Day School when ly was there and he was the father of uh an acquaintance of Lyall how long did you spend with him two hours and did you interview his son Cole Krueger yes where does Cole Krueger live he lives in Sweden were you out of the country on other business and uh yes fit in this interview yes um that um was a an interview I thought was an important one to make because he uh knew ly across uh a lot of years and uh spent a fair amount of time with him and I was going to be out of the country and I indicated to you that I thought it would be a good idea for me to add a leg to a trip I was on anyhow how long did you spend interviewing Cole Krueger spent nine hours with uh Cole Krueger and did you interview Roger Smith yes who is Roger Smith Roger Smith uh is a uh there was a colleague a u a corporate colleague of Jose Menendez and uh I believe was worked immediately under him and why did you want to speak to a colleague of Jose Menendez because I wanted to learn uh something about the kind of person that Jose Menendez presented himself himself as being as he worked with um those who worked under him and with him and did you read interviews of a number of other business associates of Jose Menendez as well yes and how long did you spend interviewing Roger Smith two hours did you interview Eric Tam yes and who is he Eric Tam was also a an individual who was a uh a friend of u l menendez's and knew him for quite a few years and how long did you spend talking to Eric cam yeah and an hour and a half total and you interviewed him in person no I Eric Tam I had to interview by telephone everyone else we've talked about I interviewed in person uh but also in some cases added follow-up telephone and did you speak to Eric Tam more than once yes and did you speak to a woman named Alicia Herz yes and why did you want to speak with her she was a teacher at Princeton day school a teacher Lyall was one of her students and I wanted to get her impressions she also knew the family how long did you spend with her one hour by telephone and did you interview Kitty menendez's therapist Lester Summerfield yes and how long did you spend with him approximately two hours and why did you want to speak with him because he had come to know her uh in the ways that are special to a therapist someone that uh you seek out to to help you deal with the things that are troubling you and the way that you're looking at life and the problems you're facing did you attempt to interview Donovan gdo yes and what happened with regard to that I made uh numerous calls probably four or five six something like that surpr me good old Donovan gdo was never given the information that I had reached him I reached uh people at his number uh but was told that he was not there and uh there were there were was no return to me of the uh of those calls and I left the number many times do you know interesting interesting he couldn't hear back from Donovan goodro Donovan goodro just never responded despite how many times he tried to call him why does that not surprise me Dr John kti yes and is he an expert who is also working on L Mendes's case and to your knowledge did he interview some witnesses personally did he interview some of a number of the same ones you interviewed yes and did he interview some others that you were not able to interview yes and did you speak speak with him about the others that he'd been able to interview that you had not yes and was Maria Menendez Lyle's grandmother one of those individuals yes and did Dr kti share with you the content of his interviews with Mrs Menendez yes and were there any other individuals whom he had interviewed and you had not uh my memory doesn't pull a particular one back but we've talked um several times uh over the last few months now in addition to interviewing um all of these individuals um did you request that a physical examination be conducted on LY Menendez to see if there were any physical signs of the abuse he had the sexual abuse he had suffered from ages 6 to8 yes I did I I understood that U it would be uh quite unlikely that those findings would be made but I thought that it was something that should be investigated anyhow and to your knowledge was such an investigation such an examination conducted yes and were the results what you expected which was there was no physical evidence yes and did that indicate to you that that that the information was less reliable the fact that there wasn't any sort of physical no evidence why is that because it my understanding is it isn't expected that you will find evidence um after such a long period of time and with someone of this maturity but it was an you wanted followed up on is that correct that's right yes and in addition to these interviews reviewing the material that we've talked about did you also read transcripts of testimony in this case yes and did you watch tapes of lende as's testimony uh yes uh portions of the testimony uh I watched on tape and portions I read did you also consult with me yes how many conversations do you think you had with me I I didn't keep any count I would be surprised if it was less than uh 20 or 30 did you make a number of trips to California yes and on those trips to California did you interview ly Menendez and Eric Menendez yes and where did you interview them in the jail and how many times did you see Eric Menendez I sign for 11 and 1 half hours I must sign 1 2 3 four five six seven it looks my my records indicate seven times why was it important to you to talk to Eric Menendez well it was important uh for me to get information from him about ly's experiences within the home and his perspectives on the family too but particularly to learn from him what he knew about uh the treatment of ly and you said you interviewed La Menendez as well yes how many times did you interview La Menendez I'm going to have to count dates uh to know that so he's he's got his notes he's got his his notes in front of him which he's he's allowed he's allowed to have generally speaking when we're when we're hearing from medical professionals from from people that have especially someone someone like this who has who has uh you know talked to so many people it's it's really asking a lot of them to to try to have them like have certain specific details memorized especially if if you know they can verify that he did take those notes in in his ordinary course and course of you know what he typically does as a professional you know that there's nothing funky going on with these notes so it's there's nothing there's nothing wrong with him sort of reading for his notes for for this information especially when it's going to eventually you know bring up the actual testimony of like what's actually in his brain that is like the the more important stuff that we want to get out of this witness so that's I just wanted to make that point if I count it accurately just now uh about 11 times and how many hours total did you spend interviewing him 60 all right let's take our recess we're at 10 minutes to the hour and we'll resume tomorrow at 9 o' d l Menendez is in court with his lawyers the people are represented the jury panel is not okay we received notice from we are going to skip through this part because this is just a hearing look at that he's got a new tie magically magically so uh let me get a question here real quick from diania jao I don't recall if have already asked this but if this case was happening now with the same lawyers judge Witnesses do you think the outcome would be the same I think that there would be quite a few differences in in how this case is brought because of the the culture because of you know just things that have that have changed in so many ways that have even just sort of like sideways impacts on this case um you know for example like the whole conversation about homosexuality would be very different if it would even come in at all um in in a trial like this or in this trial if it were brought in 2024 as opposed to or you know we started this in you know 2022 you know like 30 years later a lot of a lot of things have changed in the United States and and particularly like this is Los Angeles this is California which is one of the more one of the more socially liberal states um you know and and counties quite honestly because there not every not every county in California is has the same sort of cultural values um as Los Angeles but I I really think that there would be a very different way that they would have brought this case because the jury would have had would have brought some very different perspectives than than what they brought back in 1993 so I think that that with that um I for me I mean I can just tell you like what I think of this case you know coming at it from from the perspective that I have in 24 I I see this as a case where they get convicted of voluntary manslaughter and not murder so I I can I mean but of course like you know I I don't I don't exactly have a crystal ball you know to be able to to tell you like what if this came to trial today um you know would I would I selfishly like to see uh this this case get get remanded back down for a third trial if if the the brothers are successful and or at least somewhat successful and in their in their appeal um yeah yeah yeah I mean because that part of it is I would love to see how this case would be tried differently 30 years later obviously for for these individuals involved in this trial I wouldn't want to uh want to necessarily see them all go through all of that all over again but I mean it would be it would be very I mean even just from like a sociological perspective it would just be so fascinating to see but to basically to to give a long story short long answer short the TDL the tldr version um you know too long didn't read version um is I I think I think the outcome would be different I I do I I think they still probably would have been found guilty of something but I think it would have been voluntary manslaughter as opposed to murder because all of these other things about like Eric being an actor and Eric being gay like these these things that like somehow came into the 1993 trial would would not like I don't think a jury would have entertained those those things today I really don't think that they would um so anyway let's let's continue on and would you state your name again for the record yes uh Newton Hart all right I'll remind you that you're still under oath you may continue your direct examination thank you morning Dr Hart good morning I think when we left off yesterday excuse me we were talking about the information gathering process yes that you went through prior to making any rendering any opinions or making any decisions with regard to this case yes that correct and I believe you indicated that you have read transcripts of testimony in this trial yes and you interviewed various family members business associates teachers coaches uh friends of ly yes is that correct you also interviewed his brother Eric is that correct and you spent time interviewing ly Menendez is that correct that's right and when you interviewed l NZ were you told what area to uh what areas you could talk to him about or were there areas you weren't supposed to talk to him about or were you free to ask him whatever you wanted I was free to ask him whatever I wanted okay and when you interviewed him did you go by yourself or did you have one of the lawyers with you no I was by myself and were there any limitations on the number of times you could see him no were there any limitations on the number of times you could ask him about the same incident no and in gathering information from him were you looking not only to gather facts but to try to make some determination as to the reliability of the information you were gathering yes and what process did you use to try to make sure that the information you were getting was accurate across all those sources yes uh well one would be in talking to LY uh we approached topics issues from a variety of different directions uh talking I would talk with him about the kinds of things that happened to him at one stage of his life or associated with one kind of event or one activity uh and then we would go to another and another or I might come back and ask him about something that have been a particular concerned to him or whether or not there were things that produced particular feelings for him or gave him particular points of view and so uh in some more structured and some less structured sometimes I would just let ask him to describe for me periods of his life what was happening at home what was happening at school what happened in other activities So within that set what was important to me was to determine whether when approached from that wide variety of directions uh did I get basically the same information over and over again and did I get it in a way that appeared to be natural that wasn't uh so that I wasn't hearing statements that seem to have been practiced and that's deals with that part then beyond that of course I was interested in knowing whether those who had observed Lyall and and his family had information that indicated that those things things like that had happened specific things had happened or that uh there were conditions that would indicate that those kinds of things would be likely to happen and in addition to that I was interested in the perspectives of people their experiences with his parents uh to determine whether their behavior in other areas outside of the family would suggest that uh some probability that they would behave in the way that I was uh being told that they were behaving or that there would be conditions such as I had heard about within the family and with regard to that with regard to descriptions of their parents Behavior yes um you indicated that you interviewed a business associate of Jose mandez yes that's right and you indicated that you read a number of other uh interviews of other business associates is that correct that's right and you interviewed family members MH and were you given a picture of who Jose Menendez was in the public world yes and just generally what was your description of him in terms of how he operated in the public world who was he objection improper conclusion in your sustained as the form of the question what characteristics that you felt were important did you hear about um Jose mandez in the public world objection calls for him are you asking for what was said or his uh no his I believe he's indicated that he was looking at the outside world to see if the behavior that he heard described there was consistent with the description that he was receiving from la Mendez of who his father was all right big voice should be heard I'm not objecting to the question she just okay why don't you just phrase it that way thank you what Behavior did you were you able to learn about in terms of Jose in the public world that was consistent with the person that ly Menendez was describing to you objection calls for I thought you said you just didn't object to that she didn't ask the same question I'm sorry but you wanted exactly in those words well yeah okay do you mind if we have the reporter readback your statement I wish she would okay thank you I believe he indicated that he's looking at the outside world to see if the beh that he heard described was consistent with the description that he was receiving from ly mandez of who his father was okay that's now in the form of a question that he was uh very bright that he was um very effective in uh in planning to move in directions that he wanted to go uh to achieve goals uh that he was a very powerful personality would dominate uh situations that he was in that he was a risk taker who would go out to the edge uh to achieve the things that were important to him that he was cruel that he belittled and almost dissected people uh in the front of other people in terms of their ideas uh their abilities that he wanted to have that he attempted to have control of all of those factors around him and the people that worked with him and for him were expected to do exactly what he wanted to have done and if not they were in trouble and was that the man ly Mendez described to You Callin repas question was that consistent with the behavior that ly Menendez described to you yes and did you attempt to make the same evaluation of kitty Menendez yes and what information did you receive about Kitty Menendez from other sources that was consistent with the description you were given by ly Menendez did you attempt to gather information about Kitty Mendez to determine if the person L Menendez was describing to you was consistent with the other information did you attempt to get such information yes and did you get such information yes and in what ways were were their consistent behaviors described to you what specific behaviors were consistent yes and characteristics characteristics yes yes uh that she was a a person of uh who had a good deal of physical strength who could uh be quite uh bubbly and um enjoyable to be around in some social situations uh that she was a person who would put a lot of energy into things that she was doing uh that she was a person who was uh seemed confused and disoriented at times uh often late often not accomplishing things that she had indicated that she would that she was a person who seemed to be unhappy who seemed to be filled with rage who was explosive unpredictable in that explosiveness and who uh was strongly critical at times sounds like an absolute Delight in receiving information from L man is did he seem to be eager to tell you negative things about his family there's some C speculation is the demeanor of the person who is giving you information important to you yes and do some people try to sell you on their view of the world certainly and are certain people enthusiastic about sharing information and and eager to give you information yes was L Menendez is it is it important in assessing The credibility of someone or the veracity of the information to evaluate the manner in which the information is delivered to you yes that's one of the factors this is this is a really good example of when someone gets an objection and you find your way around that objection by by asking a series of questions so the the objection so she what she asked for was you know did he seem eager to to tell you um you know this information negative stuff about his family was he eager to tell you negative stuff about his family the objection that came came from the other side was speculation which is true because you know you can't I mean to to say is somebody eager you can say you know what was his body language as he told you or something like that like you know and kind of get sort of describing someone who appears to be eager or not eager um or you can do what she just did and kind of like ask these foundational questions that just kind of get you step by step to the answer that you want which is you know whether or not he was eager in in in giving negative information about his family so she you know the last like five or six questions were just like her slowly progressing and she did it without without skipping a beat which was just really really great and did you assess L menendez's demeanor yes was that part of your evaluation yes and what was his demeanor with regard to providing information in the uh first set the the early periods of talking with him uh it appeared to be very difficult for him to talk about the kinds of things that were going on had gone on in his home the kinds of things that would speak negatively about his mother and his father and he would uh put his head down and he would have uh struggle for words and often use words that were uh sort more positive than than he used eventually there were words that sort of glossed over uh characteristics uh and then increasing with an opportunity to meet and come to know each other uh he was able to speak more directly about those things and in a manner that clear that that indicated that he was he was thinking out loud as he talked about it that he wasn't giving me uh again a script or something he had memorized have you had occasion to evaluate or interview people who hate their parents as I've had a chance to evaluate or and interview people who have a lot of anger a lot of negative feelings about their parents did you see that in l mandez no I didn't how much time did you spend with him 60 hours and did you feel that that in that period of time you were able to get a an accurate picture of who L Menendez is yes and did you feel that you got an accurate picture of what his family life was like just proper opinion question did you get do you feel that you were able to form an impression of the relation ship between him and his parents and his brother yes but I take it you did not rely exclusively on the information that he supplied you no I did not as a way of organizing this material in order to evaluate it did you put it together by various age groups yes and what were the age groups that were important to you in order to group the events of his life well well the the option was available to break it down into um briefer periods shorter range of years I put it in what would be the preschool period the primary school period and then adolescence which really could go on into early adulthood and when you said the preschool period I take that that's zero to what age zero to five or six yeah now I take it that if something happened to L Menendez when he was 6 months old he wouldn't remember it he wouldn't be able to tell you about it is that correct that's correct you you're um you you know at the outset uh that unless there's been someone uh in the family able to observe uh regularly uh that you're not going to have as much information available at uh for the early years but what is there is there any effect if L Menendez were to have received either physical psychological or sexual maltreatment at 6 months or at one year or at 18 months and couldn't tell you about it today does that mean that those events would have no effect on him no doesn't mean that at all U there uh certainly is research indicating that in those early months uh the impact of the interaction with other people the conditions around you uh can have an influence on your development and is it important to know things about the attitude of the parents in addition to the acts of the parents yes because it's uh suggestive in some cases strongly suggestive of the way that they would behave toward or around their child you have information I believe that kitty Menendez did not want to have a child when was born is that correct yes now we have no information that before he was born she was telling him I don't want to have you or that he heard those words so why would it be important to you to know that fact meeting it's one of the kinds of factors that's uh indicates uh the likelihood of of poor care being provided for a child lack of Interest or negative Fe feelings around a child in fact that's the kind of information that is used uh in some of the risk assessment devices uh that uh in which they investigate perspective of the mother uh life conditions of the mother while she's in the hospital preparing to give birth or shortly after that allows uh judgments to be made about whether or not Services should be offered uh to that family in the terms of of helpers who will uh uh provide different perspectives uh information about Child Development uh information about uh good parenting practices to those who are at risk to mistreat their children now is there such a program that's actually in existence yes there is a program of this nature in uh Hawaii that uh the last time I checked on it about two-thirds of the state applied the program and it was offered at no charge these services to those families that appeared to need help and it's provided by the state of Hawaii as I understand it now you're not suggesting I take it that everyone who finds thems pregnant is UN happy about it turns out to be a bad mother no so is it just a factor that you look at it's it's one of of many factors that would be considered and you have information I believe that kitty Menendez had wanted when ly was an infant to have him live at her mother-in-law's and visit him on the way to skiing and on the way back is that cor yes that's right do you have any information that while remembers that or even knew about it at the time no uh not in terms of knowing that his mother had said something like this is a factor such as that important to you yes it certainly uh expresses or indicates the state of the mind of the mother about the child about the value of the child about the importance ship the importance of close and regular relationships of being supportive to that child now would you expect that if someone had those feelings that those feelings would come out if not in words certainly in Behavior objection CA speculation is there evidence to suggest that we act on our feelings yes so would it be your opinion that a mother who did not want a child and who in fact wanted someone else to raise him would be likely to demonstrate those feelings in other ways did you find other evidence of kitty mendez's behavior that suggested to you that she was acting out these feelings yes and these feelings of rejection uh which you're aware of from before his birth based on the information you received did she continue to act in a highly rejecting manner throughout lyall's life yes is there evidence to suggest that even infants receive messages from behavior from their caregivers yes and so if Kitty Menendez was acting in a rejecting manner when he was an infant is it your opinion that that would have some effect on him yes what type of effect would it have well uh the literature suggests that if you experience that kind of rejecting behavior in the uh first year and a half of Life uh that you're likely to become self activate self-isolating excuse me and to have difficulty developing coping skills what self-isolating mean uh that means that you tend not to expect or reach out for support from other people as much and you're more likely to pull within yourself or or keep feelings and thoughts to yourself now do these early experiences just fade with time at at some point at 6 or at 8 or at 10 or at 20 they no longer have any impact on you uh they might be reduced somewhat depending upon whether you experience uh other kinds of caretaking that are significantly different than this but the these early months and early years of life are continue to be considered the most critical uh period uh in in determining the kinds of development that will follow now when you started putting your material together to evaluate this case I believe you indicated that you had grouped it by age and by category is that correct and did you make an effort with regard to every event you relied on to find some corroboration yes were you always able to find corroboration no were you able to find corroboration in a great number of the incidents on which you relied yes in um you have the chart with you I believe is that correct yes okay let's try and work off of that under terrorizing events in the preschool years you've made reference to an incident in which Lyall Was Bitten in the face Bitten on the face by a dog and that kitty had placed him in a situation with this dog who was known to be dangerous is that correct yes and terrorizing breaks down into terrorizing and endangering is that correct yes yes now with regard to that incident um this happened when L Menendez was 3 years old so you got information from this about this from relatives I take it yes and were you also shown uh your onor what's the next in order 303 I think the chart was 303 I'm sorry 304 okay I'd like to Mark as 304 now oh yeah in this particular case there were medical records ofly yeah I'd like to Mark as 34 a two-page document which I've shown to the prosecution which is a great western life so in let me answer some questions here Karen ler um I know someone in the chat answered this already but were they offered a deal in the beginning they were never offered any kind of plea deal the as far as I understand it the LA County uh District Attorney's office was very very intent on having a very big trial um against these two guys it was for for one reason or another I know there are a lot of people out there that that feel like this was like almost a not a political trial but almost like a political trial like they were really trying to build a reputation as as uh prosecutors that that can win cases especially since they hadn't been winning some some very high-profile cases there yeah there's that that's an allegation though I don't know if that's if that's for sure true but there's I mean there there is there is definitely definitely an argument to that um Tish is what is it that Dr Hart is testifying about now again I get that it's related to abuse but what answers is he what what what questions is he answering what is the purpose of with this witness I mean this is this is to get into you know the the abuse allegations by Lyle um because there's been a lot about about abusing against against Eric um and it almost can make the uh abuse allegations by Lyle look pretty tame so this is you know he's been he's been laying a foundation pretty Slowly by talking about the parents talking about you know all of the the people that he talk to now he's getting into corroboration of some of these various um these various allegations of like these incidents that that they say occurred throughout their childhood um and so these are going to be important to go through like here I'm sure you know he he already indicated that there's there's medical records so medical records of a dog bite so this is corroboration as to something something big that happened you know and this dog also existed around that time so um so we're going to hear we're about to go through periodically a bunch of incidents that that may have may or may not have corroboration probably most if not all of them will probably have some kind of corroboration Insurance report report witness yes showing you what we've Mar 304 you recognize that yes and what is that that's a uh well actually this is a an insurance uh claim and indicates that uh that Lyall was bitten by a dog who be became angry with him and attacked him okay and what is the date of that uh March 9 1971 and he was born sorry really quick uh Carolyn V was ly's jury there for Dr Tyler too if I remember correctly yes because I think she was testifying as to as to primarily like stuff that happened to him so I think that may have been just his if I remember correctly if somebody else remembers differently let me know in the chat or in the comments if you're watching on replay born January 10th 1968 so it would have been three years old this time is that correct yes does he also have a scar on the right side of his face from that yes and uh you said you also received information about this from relatives is that correct yes there were reports from relatives as I remember um so this is an incident which you had corrected thank you your everyday a number of ways of cooperating it is that correct yes in the terrorizing category in the preschool years um you identified eight different events which you thought uh were either ter terrorizing or endangering is that correct yes now do you feel that that was every terrorizing or endangering act that he experienced during that period of time no those are the ones that uh for which they were memories uh for people some kind of information uh to indicate they had occurred and within your list there are there some that are of more significance to you than others yes so included in your list have that L was often left in the play pin crying and you also indicate that he was punched in the stomach stomach by his father for weding his pants yes now those are very different types of events is that correct yes certainly um one is a one-time event in very dramatic yes and the other is a perhaps more minor event but of a more chronic or repeated pattern is that correct yesing um is there are there events that only happen once that are extremely significant in this particular set overall yes you you have a combination of U actually you have a variety of categories you could have those things that only needed to happen once uh to be of importance because they would be so have such a strong influence uh you have those events that uh happened uh in sort of episodically you might have them happen at this time then a little later on they would happen then a little later on they would happen but maybe with a good deal space between you'd have other events that uh that might be quite or continue to be quite regular in this category you've talked about uh Kitty's driving and ly not being secure in the car during a wild ride so he's thrown around um him being left alone at the airport uh this swimming incident being held underwater that type of thing what is the message to a child of being subjected to terrifying events when they are less than five years old no well one of the uh fundamental building blocks uh for healthy development is to learn to trust your world and end up trusting yourself and that the world is a PL a good place a place where you're going to be taken care of and when these things happen the world then is becoming a known to be a dangerous place one which you might be hurt at any time one in which bad things can happen to you that you have no control over so it's becomes a scary place just the opposite of what you would want to have happen for a young person why is it important for a child to trust their environment well so they will feel safe in it so they'll feel that they can explore that environment as so that they'll get a sense that the people around them are people that can can be trusted uh that are not going to hurt them you've listed um a couple of incidents about um isolating one of which was that he was sent to his room and this is again preschool under five sent to his room by six o'clock at night the door was locked and he was not let out to go to the bathroom wasn't given any food Etc yes that's right now is that information you have from L Menendez or is that information you have from other sources from um other sources in addition and what is the effect on a child who is less than five who's into his room regularly at six o'clock and not allowed to eat and not allowed to get out and yes go to the bathroom well the magnitude of the effect will depend on a lot of other things that are happening but again uh when you're a young child uh you want to be around people while you're awake you want you need the support of people you need to know that uh they want you to be around them and not to be off uh where you aren't able to seek help where you aren't able to seek comfort from them and uh and so those would be the things that would go wrong under rejecting and degrading experiences in this age period you've listed uh nine separate incidents that you could document and included were uh Kitty's abandonment of Lyle and malls in the airport uh her lack of affection her dragging uh Lyall down the hall by his hair the making fun of lyall's stuttering Kitty's complaining of the damage that the children caused to the marriage um and the belittling of Lyall because of the way he walked yes now are there particular events in that group that you consider to be more significant than others well actually all all those are pretty significant events what's the significance of kitty not showing affection to Lyall or not tucking him in at night assum not evidence assuming those things yes are you asking it in that fashion yes you're honor I'd like to incorporate your suggestion by reference if I may assuming these events occurred what would be the effect on a child of of not having affection shown would would indicate that you're not deserving of affection that you're not lovable you're not something worth caring about it's it's it's also a basic uh need that children have to have that kind of nurturing that kind of comforting that kind of valuing is this something minor hugging your child using pet names speaking to them affectionately showing them that you love them in whatever your manner is is that important to a child that's important to a child yes what happens if you don't show the child this don't show the child that they're loved well again the child will sense that he isn't lovable that there's something wrong with him what is the implication of making fun of a child who stutters or making fun of a child because of the way that he walks yes and and in fact as you were mentioning the number of items there actually underneath those such as the the the duck walk the criticizing of that there are many different ways that was shown so it's really more than an incident or or a condition because it was something that happened over and over in in different ways well during this period excuse me when you say over and over you mean there were various forms of humiliation related to the way he walked yes and were there various forms of humiliation related to the way that he spoke yes and so this didn't just happened once where somebody said you walk like a duck that's that's my understanding uh in addition to uh the importance of learning that a world you can trust in you're also starting to learn at this time that you can trust yourself that you're a a person who can do some things and so to degrade these very basic uh sort of competencies that are developing talking and walking uh is is really U rather severe way to uh to show a child that he is flawed do children look to parents in particular for a picture of who they are whether they're okay what their strengths and weaknesses are yes um certainly uh with particular emphasis during this period and and in the early stages of The Next Period uh you're looking to that outside world to help you make sense out of that world and what the most powerful people in that outside world are saying to you by actions and words directly or implied uh is the message that you're going to give the most weight to that's must what it is does that then become your own definition of yourself yes it it it certainly would make up a good part of that and the information with regard to LY stuttering and his parents reaction to it I take it that the parents reaction to it came from ly and from other sources the the parents reaction to the stuttering and the and the walk and so on and the existence of the speech problem itself did you see documentation of that yes I did that it had been recognized in the school and that then finally some help was given I think when he was about 11 I'd like to Mark as next to motor 30 five a two-page document entitled school health record Dr I'm going to show you what we've marked is 305 which appears to be school records for lendes have you seen those before yes and is there an entry which indicates that the school identified that he had a speech disorder there's an indication private physician exam [Music] articulation something speech therapy I think it's suggested sug it's a little hard to uh to make it out and what year was this from oh this was uh dated in 76 so la would have been eight years old at that point yes and did you review the records to see um when if ever the speech problem was addressed by the parents yes the uh to the best of my knowledge it was addressed uh when the therapy uh started which was in 79 there was an indication somewhere in the record of some speech classes going on in school but there wasn't any clarification in regard to what that meant and the fact that it was indicated here that the therapy was suggested would uh certainly suggest that it wasn't taking care of that if that was the time period I've handed you now what we've marked as 306 and does that appear to be speech therapy records from 1979 yes and L would have been 11 years old at that time is that correct yes so we're aware or you have information that he had this speech disorder before he even entered kindergarten is that correct yes and the first treatment that can be documented that he had was in 1979 when he was 11 yes is that correct in the preschool period uh you also found incidents in the exploiting corrupting area and one of the items that you mentioned was uh Lyle's witnessing of the physical violence between his mother and father is that correct yes and is there evidence to support that witnessing physical violence is damaging yes or is it only people who suffer physical violence themselves that are damaged no witnessing uh is damaging in what way well it can be damaging in a number of ways uh for one thing uh it's teaching you that it's a violent and dangerous world out there in general in another it's teaching you from whom that violence can come and then when it is between the two most important people in the world it's teaching you that uh people who are supposed to care about each other are able and do hurt each other under denying emotional responsiveness which is the same as denying emotional needs um you've list a number of incident listed a number of incidents um some of which appear in other categories such as being left in the play pin uh not having a emotional response um to his crying being punished for crying not being allowed to show emotion not being nurtured and why is it important in this preschool era uh of a child's life to be able to not only receive emotion from other people but to be able to express it compound and leing well first want don't you ask him if he does identify all those things you enumerated as things that fall within that category are all of those items uh items which fall within that category yes as I'm remembering the items that you read off minut too okay and is it important you've already indicated that children need to receive affection from other people yes that's well established and is it also important for a child to be able to express emotions yes why well it's important to be able to express them to start to deal with them uh to start to move toward being uh a human being who has those emotions the and to have appropriate reactions to those so that when you're in need when you're under stress when you reach out for someone to hug you you need to have that happen they it's been described by a colleague of mine who's an expert in this area as uh there should be a slow dance between the infant and parent and the infant should lead is it uh is it is it something that that you hear commonly little boys shouldn't cry little boys don't cry uh is there a sort of cultural B bias against little boys expressing emotion yes there's a long-standing cultural bias is that one that uh we've been moving out of in the last 15 or 20 years but still some emphasis on that is there any evidence to support the theory that little girls have emotions and little boys don't no do have different degrees of emotion or different types of emotion or are they the same that isn't clear that there are important differences there so what's the effect of telling a little boy you can't cry you can't show pain and that there's something wrong with you if you do right it could have several means it could mean that uh the feelings that you have are of no consequence they shouldn't be given any attention and therefore there's something wrong with you it may mean that you are a strong message is that you're to deny those feelings you're somehow to cover them up to just stop them and what's the message to the child who has these feelings and is being told that there's something wrong with the feelings well it it could be uh and probably would be a mixed message which is people don't care about my feelings they won't react to my feelings I can't depend on them care about them and there's or there's something wrong with me even having the feelings do people use feelings as a Guide to Life I do we do some things by Instinct em yeah certainly feelings are an important part the emotional side the affective side of life uh to give it strength to give it meaning to give it Joy you also in this category we have the denying mental educational or medical needs yes is that correct and you evaluated La Menendez in in those areas yes is that correct do you have any reason to believe that his parents didn't take him to the doctor when he had a cold or a sore throat no no the uh the records that I reviewed indicated that uh visits to the doctor for things like that were fairly frequent that's to get ahead of some some cross-examination questions because undoubtedly on Cross it's going to come up you know well they did take you know Lyall to the doctor when he had this and he had that and you know this kind of thing so that's definitely going to come up on Cross so this is to try to get ahead of some of that to say like no I mean they they definitely did I I agree and that doesn't change what I'm saying okay so for this preschool period is is it uh fair to say that that the most if not the only real evidence you have of of neglecting this are would be with regard to the speech problem yes uh that falls outside of that range that was something that uh was evidently apparent to them that they were concerned about that they criticized for and yet didn't seek help for is it your testimony that kiding and Jose Menendez never did anything for L Menendez never took care of him in any way no no did they provide him with a house to live in yes did they provide him with food yes they provide him with clothing yes paid for schools for him yes paid for tennis lessons yes is it possible that a child who lives in a nice home is well-dressed goes to good schools and receives private tennis lessons still can be suffering emotional or psychological damage in that home yes is there any reason to believe that only poor children receive psychological damage no and in fact when I helped the national uh committee for the prevention of child abuse developed their booklet on emotional abuse or psychological abuse we made a point of presenting an incident of that type because it was certainly known to exist in fact if you are are poor um are you more likely to have people interfering in your life does call for improper P repas question uh do people in the lower socioeconomic groups of our society tend to have interference in their lives from social workers perhaps more police presence that type of official uh visiting of home objection improper opinion La of foundation do you have an opinion in that area in terms of the uh isolation of a wealthy family versus the exposure of a family who is less economically advantaged I know that uh the reporting of child abuse is much more likely among those in the lower socioeconomic range and therefore uh it would appear that they are more subject to to monitoring or intervention on the part of society is another possible interpretation that rich people don't abuse their children it's a a possible interpretation but uh there's uh not much to support its accuracy in the I feel like that question was was also to get ahead of like paman getting up there and being like but can't we just say that rich people just don't abuse their kids can't we just can't we just agree to that I I it wouldn't surprise me if if that was something that actually did come up on cross-examination at this point the area of the primary years now that would be five until what age oh about 11 I so now are there far more events in this category than in the primary in the preschool age yes uh this is a period when there were uh more people who would have knowledge of conditions and in which Lyle would also be more likely to remember his experiences and was one of the uh was the first category that you charted within the primary age group terrorizing yes and did you chart somewhere between 25 and 30 independent acts of terrorizing uh well without counting them I I have two and a third pages about of terrorizing items so oh wait in fact I think they looks like about 40 or so and some of them with multiple uh instances or now included in there and I I don't want to have you go through all of them but I would like to just refer to some of them and then have you tell me which ones you think are particular significance uh did you include in there uh the being held underwater during swimming yes um the confrontation between or the incident with Lyall and his father in which he painstakingly sets up toy soldiers and his father destroys them all in a very short period of time in spite of the fact ly's crying did you include that being trapped in the shower with the hot and cold water yes and Lyall being dragged down the hall by the hair yes God and L being thrown into the coffee table yes L being sent outside on the roof or out to the dogghouse as punishment yes L observing his parents fighting yes and this is physically fighting yes allow being punched in the stomach for eating the wrong food while on the E to win diet I'm on the top I believe I did I'm just having trouble it it's the right hand column at the top of the first page oh yes there it is okay um Draco Amy thank you so much for being a member for eight months and also one of our awesome mods love and hugs for all who need slw it wonderful thank you thank you um and also for all the folks that are members thank you so much for being members um for anyone that is considering becoming one uh please definitely do consider becoming one because the the support on on the channel means basically everything you know it means I can do more more Niche content like this um like the Menendez trial um it's uh it's not one that is is the most attention grabbing at least these days um but there are a lot of people that are that are pretty keenly interested in it um and I as am I um and so the folks that are are able to um to join as members it's always so helpful to be able to do this kind of content that isn't you know the most click baity stuff out there on the internet so anyway thank you to Draco Amy and thank you to everybody else that is a member whether you are uh whether you bought the membership for yourself or you were gifted one um and of course thanks to everybody that is you know watching and commenting and liking um or just watching and lurking um just wanted to say that to to all the folks I appreciate all of you guys do you include ly uh finding his rabbit crushed to death in the trash can yes uh did you include Lyall he having his mother scream at him uh pull his hands away from his ears when he's attempting to block her screaming and calling him names I'm going down the right hand col if we do it that way help okay yes I see that one right you included the reaction of the parents to the bed wedding yes um you read the testimony of uh Jessica Goldsmith I believe and he told you about the incident of hanging from the balcony and being punched in the stomach um being threatened to them threatening to send him to a school for the handicap because of his speech problem yes call for here s um Kitty's driving her reckless driving yes the brainwashing Talks by uh his father Yes Kitty smearing blood I'm on the second page now Kitty smearing the yes blood on ly's face Jose threatening to divorce Kitty and get a new family debie this is definitely chasing him with a knife yes this is I mean this is definitely leading I I'm I'm surprised that the prosecution hasn't objected at this point because it's also it's also pretty pretty damaging you know I mean it or at the very least it sounds really bad especially in this rapid succession but yeah this is this is definitely leading molesting ly this is page two the bottom of the first column oh yes certainly Jose saying if you don't bad things will happen to you you'll no longer be my son yes and it goes on and on from there is that correct yes now obviously a significant one in that age group is the sexual abuse of Jose Menendez yes of La Menendez by his father Jose Menendez is that correct yes why have you placed that in the terrorizing category uh because you're you're being forced to do things uh that uh don't fit your development you're being overpowered and in this case you're also being as as is indicated here threatened with what would probably be one of the uh one of the most powerful threats uh to LY Menendez which would be that his father would not consider him to be his son anymore because his father was the most important person in the world to him and was that only in this primary period that that was true that he experienced that kind of message that his father was the most important person in the world to him yes no it was not only in this primary period it continued right through all the periods of my uh uh opportunities to interview him now that was years after his father was dead yes and why do you say he continued to be the most important person in the world question what did LA Menendez say to you that led you to this conclusion that his father was the most important person in the world to him here you have the conclusion that his father was the most important person in the world to him is that correct yes and you formed that conclusion after speaking to L Menendez yes and others and you believe it was your opinion that lendes still viewed his father that way up to the last time you spoke to him yes when's the last time you spoke to him last Saturday and what did he say to you or what do you base your opinion on objection here yeah it's the basis for his opinion you're on that's that's why she kind of corrected herself just now she was like what did he say to you or what did you what did you base that opinion on right well the basis of the opinion is that he spoke with people and spoke with the defendant is that it not what was said well what was said in those conversations that led you to that conclusion is what my question is an objection here it's not being offered for the truth of the matter merely for the basis of his opinion objection assistant was there anything about the way that Lyall spoke about his father that led you to believe that this is still true today or was as of last Saturday yes what was it about the way he spoke about his father it's that he continues to talk about his father as a man who had great strength as a man who was making uh plans uh that would be plans that uh could have some good things happening in his life uh that it his father uh was someone who was just very very bright so she managed to get she managed to get it in the the objection was hearsay because it was you know she couldn't ask like what did what did he say that made you you know believe this thing but she managed to get it in by by by saying you know can you tell us about the way that he talked about him that you know that informed your opinion on this and and so by asking that it's like what she's really asking about is like mannerisms you know body link language like how did he come across as he was talking to him but like you know he basically got the hint and was like I mean yeah it was you know the way that he continued to talk about him and all of these things that he would say about him so she managed to get it in anyway and I'm curious to see if there's going to be an objection to try to strike that answer from the record as heay probably not let's see and who had a lot of power you said that he was given this threat that he could no longer be Jose's son if he didn't measure up is that correct yes he didn't do what was expected yes and was that message delivered only in the context of the molestation or was that message delivered to him in other ways it was delivered uh in other ways too what other ways it would have been delivered uh during the talks that they had in the basement when they talked about uh uh the his tennis and what he was to achieve in that area uh the the way that he was to live his life is there a concept called conditional love yes certainly and what is conditional love it basically means that my love for you is dependent upon whether or not you meet certain standards you behave in a particular way you reach certain goals I don't love you just because you're you I love you if you do certain things that I want you to do do you have an opinion as to whether Jose's love for his son was conditional or unconditional proper recation assistant what is the message to the child who receives conditional love the message would be that there isn't something about me that in love itself is lovable that's worth caring about but that I must do if I care about this love I must do what this person wants me to do and it's what I'm able to do that's important not who I am so does this child grow up with the idea that now I've accomplished a certain goal and now I have the love I don't have to perform anymore never well it would be unlikely that that kind of conditional love would be set on the basis of one achievement yeah so would probably be never be enough would a case in which you would be continually trying to reach another goal trying to reach another standard trying to reach a goal in another area to see that you could deserve that love if a child views the love of his parent as conditional is he secure in the knowledge that he will always be loved or does he fear losing the love well he would fear losing the love because it would be required that he keep reaching standards you can't you can't rest on your ores and be yourself so if a child has this perception of his parents love and feels that he is displeasing the parent does he then feel that the parent will cease to love him yes and can that happen to uh a child who is um older an adolescent a young adult can those same Dynamics still be in place certainly that could happen uh it would not be nearly so powerful if it began at that point uh because you would have had other experiences to rest on and you may have learned to Value yourself in ways that aren't totally dependent on that but if that's been a major theme throughout your life then it's going to be continue to be a very powerful element a very powerful influence on you you talked about um or you listed in in um this list of events the programming the basement talks do you recall that yes what is the significance of the talks that Jose Menendez had with his son ly the significance of those talks as they have been described to me the information available to me uh about the nature of them and the fact that they continued uh throughout his Life as We Know It uh would indicate that he was being programmed to think and feel and behave in exactly the way that his father wanted him to that his father was not interested in what his natural inclinations or feelings might be but he was interested in seeing that Lyall became this person that he wanted him to be you've been working in the field of psychological Mal treatment for a number of years now is that correct yes are sessions such as as have been described by both L Manas and other Witnesses something you commonly see in families no is it extremely unusual OB proper opinion overall my knowledge basically indicate it's unusual in terms of the the frequency and the the detail of the aspects of his life that we're being dealt with all of us and good parents instruct their children spend time with them sit down they should be mediators of the of the child's experience help them to think about it and figure out how to handle it uh that's one of the best things you can do as a parent but this doesn't appear to have been that kind of instructive growth producing strength producing experience this was putting the thoughts the behaviors desired the feelings desired by Jose Menendez into his son is one of the goals of healthy child development for the child to become an independent person yes certainly uh the experts uh indicate that that is a proper goal of human development most good parents want their children to become increasingly independent to be able to make their own decisions to stand on their own feet to be responsible and not dependent and not controlled by others did you see patterns in the Menendez family which encourage laam Menendez to become independent stand on his own two feet and make his own decisions no did you see just the contrary yes what happens to a child who is not allowed to make decisions have their own thoughts yeah well they are very dependent on others they don't trust their own ideas they are likely uh to act impulsively when faced with a problem to solve so on because they don't trust their ability to think things through they're used to having other people either tell them what to do or criticize them for having done something that wasn't what the other person wanted them to do so it it greatly weakens this or reduces this movement toward being an independent person capable of handling his own Affairs were there specific messages about trust in this family and whether you should trust and who you should trust yes what were those messages well the the messages were uh numerous and of different types uh some were spoken uh directly uh to Lyall communicated to him as he's told it to me that other people are are weak that other people can drag you down and that you really shouldn't connect you should not get very close to other people another message uh that was communicated to him uh was that it's a dangerous world and that those close to you are dangerous in terms of the treatment he received from his father and from his mother the explosiveness the criticism the um the many things that she did uh to him there was another kind of message too which was a direct teaching ing of that you should not trust anyone in the in the most explicit terms and this occurred when ly would be placed in some sort of Jeopardy or in some sort of danger uh some sort of situation in which he was physically uh being hurt or afraid of being hurt and his father uh either carried out the act that put him in that condition and then told him that he shouldn't have even trusted him you don't trust anyone and don't trust your own father or finding him in that condition and leaving him that condition uh the message was and again there's nobody out there to help you don't trust anyone um there's been a testimony about the fact that Lyall was weding his bed yes was teenage years is that correct yes now is that the normal condition for children no and is there any significance to you to the fact that that condition existed well there there are several bits of significance that might be related to it it isn't clear what the causes were they could have been physical causes that might have been taken care of uh naturally or or through by uh pursuing U help by getting professional help that's one thing that uh was not pursued there's no evidence at least been made available to me that any professional help was sought for that and this went on until 12 or 13 years of age uh the other uh possibility is that it was due or in somehow its likelihood to occur frequently was associated with the stress that it was experiencing but that we can speculate about the original causes for this so one would be that there's a physiological problem and one is that it's stress related yes and the other thing that's significant about it is that he was criticized for this thing that may have been beyond his control and that can be quite embarrassing would any child want to be weding their bed that late in life objection speculation I ah didn't come okay can't conceive of the circumstance under which a child would want want to truly want to be wedding is bed you talked about um one possible explanation one of the two explanations being that it is stress related is that correct it's one possible explanation your honor I have a documented like to Mark as next in order 307 307 Council has copies of all of these documents these are pediatric reports from Dr yes among the medical records that you review were the records from the Pediatric Group in Princeton New Jersey Dr Katz being and Dr Lan being the primary treating Physicians I believe so I show you what's been marked is 307 do you see the results of a of an examination of L Menendez in August of 1978 when he would have been 10 years old yes I do and is there a recommendation there with regard to his speech problems uh yes speech therapy is noted there and is there anything to indicate to you that there might be stress in lonand as his life in 1978 yeah the fact that he was noted to grind his teeth what's the significance of that it would be a nervous um sort of behavior to deal with discomfort tension definely seems like T is that is teeth grinding a stress reaction it certainly can be a stress reaction and you're also uh you have you also had an opportunity to observe a scar by Lyle menendez's eyebrow yes the dog bite and were you given information about how he sustained that injury that one was sustained as I recall from the um the coffee table incident in which Jose exploded while they were horsing around and knocked him into or threw him into the coffee table that um situation as uh Lyall remembers it was one in which he was sort of extending what were the the sexual behaviors that had been going on between his father and himself and had grabbed his genitals J I move to strike the last portion of the answer as conclusion on the part of the witnessing overall natural St and were you shown um medical records documenting the treatment for that ey injury I believe I was I'll look for stop here we'll go back all right well let's take a recess um make it a 10-minute recess we'll resume at now the defendant back in court with his lawyers people represented and the jury is in the jury box before we resume let me just uh say something ladies and gentlemen um as I indicated to you last week when another witness was on the witness stand I'll be giving you all the instructions at the end of the trial that will'll deal with all the legal issues in the case but just in the interim here during the course of the trial in regards to Witnesses who testify as expert Witnesses let me just give you a little additional information a witness who testifies as an expert May rely upon evidence received at the trial as well as um other information that has uh been made available to him that has not been introduced at the trial now during the course of the trial you've sat here and listened to Witnesses and watched the witnesses testify and describe various events and the witness has as he said been ex been provided with transcripts of uh that testimony and he's reviewed that uh you since you have seen that evidence it's in its form as presented in the courtroom you are to evaluate that evidence and decide how to treat it whether to accept or reject it or uh believe or disbelieve it or however you evaluate it and I'll give you certain guidelines to deal with that at the end of the trial uh to the extent that the witness testifies about those events about which you've seen here described in the courtroom by other Witnesses um you are the judge as to whether those events occurred he's right uh to the extent that the witness describes other events that have not been testified about during the course of the trial he assumes that those events have occurred and uses uh that assumption to assist him as a basis to form certain opinions about uh the matter that he has has or will Express and the fact that um a witness assumes a certain facts have occurred does not mean those facts have occurred it's for you to decide what has or has not occurred to decide what events have or have not occurred and to give whatever weight you think is appropriate to those events and at this point the description of these events by this or any other witness is only to assist you in evaluating the opinions of the witness as to his opinions that he expresses all right you may proceed well I mean he's right he's right because ultimately it's the jury that has to come to the conclusions as to you know the big the big questions in this trial and some little questions in this trial um so you know the the expert Witnesses are there to assist the jury they're not there to supplant the jury so that's kind of what he's explaining here which is entirely appropriate Dr Hart uh before the break we were talking about or you were talking about an incident in which L was thrown into the coffee table by his father yes is that correct may I approach your honor you may I have a document a record notations on these records from July of 1974 and September of 1974 have you seen these records before yes and did you read the testimony of Alan Anderson with regard to throwing a rock at La Menendez and it hitting him in the eyes side of the face yes and his parents LA's parents reaction to that incident yes and does that incident appear to match the entry of July 24th 1974 on these records yes and the September 26 1974 entry um indicates an El laceration to eyebrow is that correct requiring stitches yes it does haven't they already been marked I thought I just yeah they were marked just before our recess yes I have marked this 308 uh well we have pediatric records as 307 I'm sorry y these are additional records I'd like to Mark these as 308 except all right have you marked them then you put a mark on them so we know what they are I did okay right I did it during the break okay that's fine thank you Dr Hart during um the uh primary period in ly's life you have a number of incidents on what is page two I believe of your chart which reflect on the behavior of kitty mandez is that correct yes and there is reference being made to Kitty smearing blood on Lyle's face oh sorry really quick uh Carolyn V what do they mean by marked marked as an exhibit uh that's that's what they're what they're referring to facing him with a knife uh twisting his arms using physical force on him in other ways yes is that correct yes it is what is the significance of that type of behavior well uh certainly all of those can be quite scary frightening terrorizing in that sense and the the the message is uh that this is somebody who uh can hurt me and who at times wants to hurt me and who is very dangerous is there any significance to the fact that this behavior is being inflicted by your mother as opposed to someone else well in the sense that again here is somebody who is such an important part of your life somebody that's supposed to love you and protect you and instead is trying to harm you and part of that harm is also blaming uh the smearing of the blood on the face uh while that would be terrorizing to many children uh it's also being done as as described uh be because Lyall is being blamed for an accident his mother had is there a patter of kitty Menendez blaming ly for the condition of her life yes that's a strong pattern that seems to go throughout his life and and what is what is the nature of that blaming what is the criticism that he hears or the respons well there are many uh criticisms that he hears apparently heard uh but one theme that's repeated over and over again is that you're the cause of my misery you're the cause of me not having the good life I could have you're the problem in my marriage you are you're the the reason that I'm not happy did you find evidence in evaluating L menendez's life that kitty Menendez had a resentment toward Lyall because of the amount of attention that he received from his father Yes that seemed to come up repeatedly and did she seem to act out that resentment on a regular BAS over and in talking to L Menendez about it did he seem to feel somehow that he was responsible for her life for overall yes uh he seemed to feel that he was but he was bewildered by it he he just couldn't understand it uh what he had done why he would be getting this kind of feeling and he wanted to love his mother and was just hard to understand he wanted to think that she loved him hard to understand why she would be doing this to him and is that a pattern that continued throughout his life yes and in fact when his brother in 1986 reads a suicide note to him that his mother has written does Lyle make some effort to help his mother yes and what is that he indicates to his mother that uh that he wants her to come and live with him and to leave his father uh and that he will take care of her and what does this represent in terms of ly Menendez and what will happen to his relationship with his father well it it certainly creates the possibility of just a tremendous sacrifice for Lyall to make if his mother were to accept it uh because again his father is at the very center of his life throughout his life is there a pattern that you were able to discern with regard to L Menendez and his need to or willingness to protect others proper opinion want you rephrase the question did you find evidence of a pattern of behavior with regard to L Menendez and protecting other people yes and did you find it particularly with regard to his brother yes and is this just in one age range or throughout his life the information I have would make it stronger in the primary and the Adolescent rather preschool yes there was testimony of about Jose using a belt yes in disciplining both boys that he would beat both of the boys with the belt are you familiar with that I've noticed that you have indicated on your chart that a form of terrorization was leaving the belt around yes what did you mean by that well if you have been beaten with a belt previously uh and the belt the belt then comes to symbolize what might happen to you just seeing the belt seeing it placed in a particular way if that has been done before preceding a time when you or someone else was going to be beaten with it then you would be frightened you would be anxious a by just that presence of the belt in that state the majority of the examples of physical violence by Jose on La Menendez are in his earlier years is that correct yes that's correct is there an incident that occurs in his mid teenage years when he's around 15 or 16 yes and and what is that incident that's the incident in which of one of the very few times in his life uh Lyall has stood up to his father and indicated he he didn't like what he was doing this was in practicing tennis and his father first as I recall hit a ball at him and hit him in the face and then grabbed him and took him off to the limousine and then struck him in the face uh just very very quickly that all that all of that appeared to have occurred and you interviewed the coach connected with this inent personally is that correct and the message in connection with that incident was something to the effect of if you embarrass me again if you ever embarrass me again I'll kill you that's right there there was uh that message uh was stated to Lyall directly as he's told me uh but there was another message there too uh which was that just as was the case when you were a young child it continues to be the case that if you do something that embarrasses me that there is going to be an immediate action and you're going to be hurt now if the majority of the physical violence occurs in the earlier years say under 12 and there is this one incident in the mid teenage years does that mean that by the time he's 20 or 21 there is no effect left of this physical violence or does it still continue to have an effect now this again these very early years the for formative years are so important in terms of the way you look at life your expectations of Life how you're going to be handled and uh it would simply build across those years and in a sense uh the punch that he received in that limousine uh was uh to uh reaffirm the fact that these boundaries this power that you learned early uh to be afraid of and to then guard your behavior very carefully around continues did Lyall continue to receive messages regarding the power of his father Yes and did he receive them directly from his father in terms of how he acted in the home how the father acted in the home well the father certainly continued to be the the power in the home throughout all these years the one to whom uh people were to go uh to get their instructions the one who was going to uh exert power if somebody did something wrong uh and and of course uh Kitty was capable of doing this too and did Jose demonstrate the his fearlessness um by demonstrating his tolerance for pain yes that's been described to me is there also a message to a child when he watches his parent interact with those outside the home yes and what was the message to Lyall when he observed how his father interacted with relatives well that this is a person of of great power a person that is is one uh who attitudes and behaviors have to be considered was there anything about that interaction that would lead him to believe that there were relatives who were stronger more powerful than his father I've have not come across any information uh to suggest that uh Lyall observed conditions that would have indicated to him there was somebody more powerful than his father anywhere anywhere and does that include his father's description of his interaction at work when his father would tell him about things he did at work it would include that yes and would it include his observations of his father interacting with people during the time that he worked with his father Yes is it important are are there messages that are conveyed to a child in terms of observing interaction of the parent with other people not only in the area of powerfulness do they get a lot of messages from watching that yes they do one of the uh quite influential quite powerful ways of learning is by watching other people and you're likely to learn the most or one way or another um have have what's happening registered if those people are important in your life and if they seem to be people who are powerful in life what was the message that L Menendez received by watching how his father treated his brother Eric well he learned I believe that his father again and again was someone who could punish and criticize and demean other people and he learned that again and again that his father was likely to direct that at someone who didn't please him at someone who didn't meet his standards and and that would additionally mean to him that if he didn't meet those standards this could happen to him was V treated with more respect in that family in terms of being viewed as the air parent or at least by Jose yes uh he was treated with more respect uh but that didn't keep him from being treated with experiencing a great deal of criticism but yes he was the one that appeared to have been selected by Jose to live out the life that Jose wanted and was Eric in a similar position no not from the information that I have and so is there a message to L in terms of seeing what happens if you're not good enough yes that you're uh even that you are degraded regularly that you are somebody that doesn't deserve very much attention very much consideration was the Menendez history the the Menendez myth of superiority important in this family yes that's my understanding and was this a subject of a lot of the instructional material that Lyall received was that somehow he was special because he was a mandz yes as has been told to me uh that that was stated over and over again and if you didn't measure up if you weren't good enough to be a Menendez did you have any worth at all it's it's hard to find instances in which uh Jose Menendez uh respected people other than himself and uh he appeared to be so attached to this notion of the Menendez superiority that those almost blend together and if you aren't up to those standards then you're either second class Menendez or you're outside of the pool of those who are important and valuable you're aware I believe from the uh testimony that the children were told that they were to not reveal things about themselves or about their family to others is that correct yes and is that a common form of behavior that that you find in abusive houses or homes that they're secretive yes that's a wellestablished characteristic of abusive homes or families so what's the significance to you of finding that that not only ly and Eric but also cousins who would stay in the house would be instructed to not reveal or actively lie about facts about their lives yeah well it would add credibility to the idea that abuse was going on in this family and that it was a very secretive family and uh also to the uh to the notion associated with that that the family did not want to be have any information about them revealed outside of the home that would in any way embarrass them or suggest that they were not of this Superior status uh that they wanted to enjoy was image important in this family yes very important what was the reaction or what was the impact of Lyall asking for help with regard to his father's molestation from both his mother and his cousin Diane and having neither of those experiences offer him any help well there'd be several meanings to that one uh certainly at the very point of his purpose would be that no one's ready to help you that uh either people are just not going to believe you or they're not going to invest themselves in any way uh in helping you or they're not going to confront uh Jose with this possibility and that additionally that your feelings and your needs uh don't count you're aware that there is a testimony that pornographic films were shown in the home and in fact shown to the children is that correct yes and what is the source of your information with regard to that well uh the discussion with L and then a discussion with uh Alicia Herz who lived in the neighborhood taught at the school and who told me she considered the the film that was being shown at some sort of social Gathering to be quite inappropriate inappropriate for her or inappropriate for children well inappropriate for many adults and uh certainly inappropriate for children and did she have information that it was shown to Children call for here suction what is the effect of showing pornographic films sexually explicit and violent films and I'm not just talking about Western's type of violent but sexually violent films to young children well again it indicates that this is a dangerous world and that people do some terrible things to each other and that they use each other they exploit each other for their pleasure for whatever their desires are and it uh would also depending on the period of development when it occurs uh could be quite disturbing in regard to uh what the the meaning of sexual identity and sexual development and sexual relations all right does it create a family in which the normal boundaries don't exist or does it add cooperation to the idea that this is such a family H yes yes it would support cooperation for that because this is the kind of thing that if adults did view it themselves uh you would expect them to make the good judgment of knowing that it's not something that should be shown to the children and so what they were doing was putting the children in the spot of having to deal with things as though they had the wisdom and experience and values of of an adult to compare that to and to come away with some good judgments you included in your list of psychological maltreatment or psychologically maltreating events um another form of exploitation which was Jose's molestation of L yes is that correct and you also included Kitty's seductive behavior and inappropriate interaction with ly is that yes that's right and what would be the significance what are both of those events the same in terms of the impact on the child no not necessarily uh they both can have quite negative uh consequences it be bad for the child uh for the father we're talking about the confusion that's associated with a male male male sexual relationships and the manipulation that's associated with making that uh acceptable of uh by uh offering the opportunity for intimacy that doesn't exist the physical closeness uh and with the with the mother of course it is out of the range of what you expect a mother to do but in this case again it's a a mother with whom he had very little opportunity for any closeness and so would have it would be something that uh a young boy might be enticed toward but would certainly confuse him in regard to what a mother's about what relationships between a mother and a boy are supposed to be and probably would be further confused in this case because outside of that kind of intimate relationship with his mother as I understand it uh the criticisms the negative uh feelings about him which his mother expressed continued why would a young boy 68 years of age get permit this to go on with his father father sexual molestation by Jose why would he let it happen he could let it happen or it could happen because he has been educated or programmed to believe that this is proper kind of behavior that this shows closeness this is the way that you you show caring that this is the way people have done or the kinds of things people have done historic testified too and uh does that is all right does a six-year-old consent to a relationship like this does he have a choice no you wouldn't consider a six-year-old to be able to give consent that would have any the meaning that we generally apply to that because a six-year-old couldn't give consent free of coercion or manipulation again this was the most powerful figure in his life and what this person told him was what you were to believe and what this person asked you to do is what you were supposed to do plus it offered the opportunity for closeness now what about with his mother this is at a slightly older age yes is this a a consensual relationship when he's now 12 or 13 and and his mother is exposing herself or acting seductively or making herself available for sexual contact no it wouldn't be consenual at that age either especially for someone uh who had been denied uh the closeness and warmth of of his mother and it had also uh been uh placed in in situations in which it had sort of been encouraged progressively you H this would be a good place if we could break here or do you want to go further I can start another section I think we should go a little further okay you include included uh in your list of uh exploiting or corrupting Behavior the fact that the parents were doing schoolwork for the children is that correct yes uh which which page are we on I'm on page five okay um what is the isn't that every child's dream to have their parents doing their homework isn't that a nice thing for them to do it's many it's the dream of any child to CH children to have somebody do their work for them um short term at least until they find that then they're even less they're less capable of doing the next bit of work and that they continue to be confronted with situations in which they're expected to be able to do something but but uh what it does is it means that that you by having your parents do that work for you there there are several messages one that uh possibly they suggesting that you're not capable of doing it another is uh that school workor is not important and you should be spending your time on something else this is probably one of the messages was pretty strongly put and that actual learning and achievement in school is not so important as getting through it with grades and uh the one of the long-term negative effects would be that you don't develop uh the study habits you don't develop uh the competencies the deal with the knowledge base or the skills that may be demanded at least not to the level that you're capable you indicated you interviewed personally Alicia HZ you also read testimony of uh the other teachers came in here testified and and read additional interviews with other teachers as well correct was there a pattern among these teachers of being aware of the fact that the parents were doing the homework yes that pattern appeared to be uh well known and was there any pattern with regard to how the teachers dealt with this information well the pattern wasn't so clear there it's the clearest part of it was that they avoided confronting the menendez's with this condition uh there may have been teachers who graded ly uh somewhat differently taking that into consideration because they weren't confident that it was lyall's work and what was the explanation for not dealing with the parents or dealing withrev suain what was the message to Lyle knowing that his teachers were not going to interfere in this area OB can I have a question right back please question what was the message to Lyall knowing that his teachers were not going to interfere in this area suain are you aware of the testimony by various teachers who came in here and said that they would not interfere in this area because they were afraid of the parents yes uh do most children view their teachers as powerful figures yes and what is the message to a child that these teachers would not face his parents ass not there you go wellage was that these teachers were not going to confront his parents that they were too powerful and too intimidating and did this apply to both Kitty and Jose apparently there was a lot of testimony about the condition of the home the fact that it was messy was disorganized the ferrets ran around used the entire house evidently as their bathroom is there any significance to a I'm not talking about things out of place but a dirty home well there are a number of things that could be significant about that one uh would be that the person taking care of the home isn't capable of of doing those things or that it isn't important or that the providing a clean and environment and attractive environment inside the home or at least in certain parts of the home is not an important thing are there laws in most states to your knowledge which remove a child from a home based purely on the physical condition of the home if it is dirty enough if it's if the conditions are extreme enough I I believe there are such laws and is that because it is an unhealthy place for a child to be yes it would be a place in which you would expect the child to develop illnesses there has been testimony about Lyle's involvement with his stuffed animals is that correct and did you discuss that with him yes and were you also aware that these stuffed animals sometimes became the target for the actions of either the parents or even his brother on some occasions yes what is the significance of their maltreatment of these inanimate objects well those uh inanimate objects those stuffed animals uh were very very important to L this was a place where he could have some control in what he pretended they were doing uh he Head Strong hang on a sec sorry I forgot that uh my airpods were going to die on me at some point all right should be good for a little bit here on positive feelings for many of them and he could create a a world with them as many children would but a world uh that was somewhat more reasonable uh than the one that he lived in to harm those animals uh would be another way or one way to hurt Lyall to punish Lyle to get him to feel some pain or some anguish and since they were known to be so important to him it's you would assume that that kind of action was meant to somehow punish him and did Kitty in fact make comments about the fact that he loved his animals more than he loved her that's my understanding did she seem to express jealousy of his St stuffed animals yes that's so weird you indicated she expressed jealousy of his relationship with his father is that correct yes and did that go on through his teenage years that's my understanding and in fact are there indications in uh the records of her therapist that she continued to have the same resentment when he would come home that she wouldn't have the same relationship with her husband say from record sustain the answer St did you do you have an opinion as to whether this jealousy of Lyall with regard to his relationship with his father continued up until uh the time of the parent death yes it appeared to continue and you've indicated that you have evidence that she had this jealous reaction to the attention that he gave to his stuffed animals yes did she also appear to exhibit a jealous reaction with regard to to his relationships with his girlfriends well she certainly was known to express a lot of anger a lot of criticism directed at his girlfriend's what was the impact of kitties alcohol and later on drug dependency objection this prises the evidence watch phas a question are you aware that kitty drank regularly throughout her life throughout her adult life as a married woman yes yes and did her drinking appear to be situational that is it it appeared to be tied to particular activities yeah it appeared to be tied uh particularly the conditions when she was uh feeling she wasn't getting enough attention uh from Jose uh may have gone well beyond that move to strike may have gone well beyond that as speculation sustain sustain that por of the answer is Trick yeah that's fair do you have information that the drinking was an ongoing problem throughout her adult life yes and are you aware of the fact that she was on significant dosages of anti-depressant medication for the last several years of her life objection this characterizes the evidence and assum facts not in evidence rephrase a question were you shown medication records for Kitty Menendez for the last several years of her life with the exception of perhaps the last six months yes which indicated she was taking substantial dosages of anti-depressant medication yes what is your opinion with regard to the impact that this alcohol and drug usage would have had on LY menendez's life well he would have seen a mother that was less and less capable of dealing with life that seemed to be out of phase okay and what is the effect of living with a mother such as she was described as being who was subject to rages um violent mood swings erratic Behavior what is it like for a child to live in that type of a home well it would be quite frightening this these are explosions of of of Rage of Anger of criticism uh that could occur at almost any time and we're not again in any predictable way or on occasion we're not tied to events going on around Kitty Menendez they seem to blow up to Bubble Up within her and so it would be quite a frightening uh set of conditions does it give a child the idea that the world is a safe place to be no did her rages seem to have a physical component to them frequently in terms of yeah in what sense striking out or grabbing by the hair or flailing about yes yes do you have information with regard to the both parents continuing to be involved in monitoring Lyle's life as he becomes a teenager and even young adult yes and what information are you referring to I'm referring particularly to the uh to the frequent telephone calls to the uh flights to check on to uh to actually go into the area where ly happened to be to check on him uh and but in addition to that to the continuing pattern of having having Lyall check in also when he had a concern or a problem to determine how he should handle that and do you have information with regard to them tapping his brother's phone yes and monitoring the calls between Eric and his friends as Eric and Lyall yes what is the effect on an adolescent or young adult to have this type of monitoring continue this type of interference in his life well it says again that you're that you have to be taken care of that you have to be watched that you don't have sufficient competence uh to handle your own Affairs that in fact you may do things that would be somehow uh damaging or of great concern to us and so we need to watch you closely and uh to uh that these are are people who will go to Great Lengths to make sure they know what you're doing and in the 60 hours that you spent with Lyall did he Express resentment that his parents were making the decisions for him in his life and controlling him to the degree that they were he indicated that that there were instances in which he wanted to do things differently than his parent wanted them and on some occasions did but he was really quite accepting of the direction that his father gave to his life and to working things through with his father in the direction of the plans that his father had for him did he seem to go along with these plans because they agreed with what he wanted in Life or was it just merely an acceptance that his father knew best or his father was going to be the one to make the decisions a proper opinion Su did he Express a participation in the making of the decisions no he didn't describe a participation that was a genuine participation having his thoughts his plans giv genuine weight but he did describe situations in which he would Broach a subject bring a subject up with his father and then if his father decided that uh in fact there was uh that that was wasn't to be given any weight that he was just to continue in the direction that he wanted then Lyall accepted that and was there such a discussion to your knowledge with regard to where he was going to school yes and what are you referring to I'm referring to the fact that uh as Lyall told me that he had come to to recognize that Princeton wasn't the right place for him and that had a desire to actually develop some competency in an area that would be useful to him uh in business as I remember particularly and so he wanted to talk with his father about changing from Princeton and going to another school and what was the outcome uh the outcome was that uh that his father indicated to him that there were really other plans for his life that it wasn't important to develop that confidency business that he could set him up or take care of him in that area and that uh in in fact there were other areas that uh that he might need to go into and the contacts and the diploma or the C the the fact he had graduated from prin would be more useful to him are you aware of any major decisions in Lyall menendez's life that he had been permitted to make did he get to pick the school school he went to no he didn't are you aware of his father uh picking a girlfriend for him yes I am are you aware that his father indicated he had attempted to uh interfere in various relationships because he didn't approve of the particular Girlfriend yes um are you aware that L Mendez testified here that he assumed his father would pick a career for him yes and his father would buy a compound one second okay in Florida and L would live there yes so now we've I was thinking as you were talking we've taken care of of career and where you will live and who you you who you will marry uh I can't recall any maj your sort of Life decision that Lyle had any significant impact on is that a healthy State of Affairs for someone who is 21 years of age no is that a mature State of Affairs for someone who is 21 years of age no he was 21 at the time his parents died is that correct yes was he mature for a 21 year old no was he immature yes what is your opinion with regard to the existence of psychological Mal treatment throughout his life was there psychological Mal treatment yes there is psychological Mal treatment throughout his life uh for the part of his life that I've come to know and would you characterize it as mild or moderate or severe severe and what is your opinion with regard to the impact of this life lifetime of abuse that it would have created a person that ly would have become a person who did not see resources around him people that would help him people that he was truly connected to that life was a dangerous thing unless you walked u a sort of tight wire or rope that had been directed for you that that he didn't have the basic competencies uh to direct his own life and needed assistance on that and that he had not been able to match the standards to be the person that uh was expected of him of the person who was the most important one in the world and the most powerful one in his world did you find ly Mendez to be an Angry Young Man no I didn't did you find L Menendez to be a Young Man Who Loved both of his parents yes thank you I have nothing further all right we'll take our recess and we'll resume at 1:30 ladies and Gentlemen please be back here promptly at 1:30 so that we can start I said that yesterday to the uh blue jury and uh needless to say somebody didn't arrive until 2 o'clock so we had a wait a half hour for that so please be back at 1:30 so we can start promptly at that time uh don't discuss the matter with don't form any final opinions about it we'll see you back here then okay so they're going to get into cross examination we are going to cut it off for today we will pick that up next time um but this has been another very very interesting um episode of this trial thank you so much for joining me whether you are watching live or on replay whether you are in the chat or in the comments or you know liking the stream or just lurking I appreciate every single one of you thank you of course as always to the mods for helping to make sure that the conversation is guided in a way that is productive and helpful um because we always have people that are that are agreeing and disagreeing in various ways and I love the fact that people people do so in a way that is uh you know helping us all to get to the truth with the capital T so all right thank you so much um we're gonna have more stuff coming out this week before we have Friday our members only live stream so um once again thank you oh and actually sorry there was one more question that I didn't get to I just realized Karen Lester have there been any other high-profile uh to two juries for defendant cases not that I'm aware of not that I I've I've never seen anything like this um folks can can comment either in the chat or uh Down Below in the comments if they know of one because that's fascinating to me this is the first one that I've ever observed myself it's it took a while to adjust to um but now now at this point I'm like it's whatever so anyway but I I have heard of people talking about these kinds of cases happening they are rare from what I understand all right guys that will about do it for me okay all right guys thank you so much and uh have a wonderful wonderful rest of your Monday whatever is left of it see you [Music] guys [Music] n