Chapter 91 Section 13

California law respects and strictly protects confidentiality agreements between psychologists and patients.According to relevant legal provisions, even if the murderer confesses to his doctor that he committed murder, the doctor cannot disclose the secret.If the doctor reported to the police, he would be prosecuted for malfeasance and have his license revoked, because legislators firmly believe that the premise of psychotherapy is to let the patient express all the troubles and distresses that are smoldering deep inside. On August 6, 1990, the prosecution won the first round of the lawsuit.Judge James Olbridge ruled that the doctor-patient nondisclosure agreement had lapsed because of Lyle Monadez's physical threats against Dr. Gerome Ozer and ordered the tapes to be turned over to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office.

Defense attorneys immediately sent the case to the California Court of Appeals.Six months later, in March 1991, the state appeals court overruled Judge Olbridge's ruling.The prosecution refused to accept it and appealed to the California Supreme Court again. The state appeals court cited multiple audiotapes in its published written decision, giving the media and the public for the first time some facts about the case.The relatives, friends and supporters of the Monadez brothers abandoned Lyle and Eric one after another from suspicion, shock to anger. After several more hearings and more than a year of investigations, the State Supreme Court ruled in August 1992 that the prosecution was authorized to use only one tape as evidence, that of Dr. Conversations of the brothers on October 31 and November 2, 1989.It was decided that a doctor-patient non-disclosure agreement did not apply to the tape because Dr. Ozer was indeed intimidated by the defendant during the conversation.As for the two tapes of the November 28 and December 11 conversations, the Supreme Court held that the former lacked sufficient evidence to prove the threats made by the accused, while the latter, the December 11 conversation, Ozer Dr. Er was suspected of deliberately luring the defendant to intimidate himself.

The Monardez brothers had spent three years behind bars before the case officially opened.They each occupy a single cell in section 7000 of the prison. No. 7000 is dedicated to imprisoning criminals with high media exposure, such as Richard Ramirez and O.J. Simpson.These "special prisoners" eat in their own cells and have three hours of exercise three times a week. Now that Lyle and Eric have confessed that the tapes they murdered their parents will be submitted to the court as physical evidence, the defense can only make a fuss about the motives for committing the crime, or the reasons that led to this family tragedy.Lawyers want to prove in court that José Monadez is the real culprit, and that his abuse of his sons over the years caused the brothers to fight against each other when they were just grown up and able to resist. rise up. (Also due to this change in defense strategy, the defendants withdrew their application to the California Court of Appeals for the Dr. Ruling on Aug. 6.)

In an interview with the "Los Angeles Times" in July 1993, Eric's lawyer, Leslie Aranson, the main force in the defense's defense team, told reporters that the relationship between the Monardez couple and their two children was time and time again. The increasingly serious conflict is the real reason for this murder.She also said that the defense of the defense will completely change the harmonious and happy image of the Monadez family in the eyes of outsiders. The only problem is that prior to the murder Lyle and Eric have never talked to their psychiatrists, lawyers, friends, or anyone else etc about the abuse they've had at home, nor the usual children/children Medical records, medical examination results, photos of injuries, etc. provided by hospitals or the police in cases of abuse.

The defense lawyers team called in experts in child abuse cases. Paul Mons is a lawyer and children's rights activist best known for his book Teenage Murder: The Abused Child Who Killed His Parents.According to the analysis in the book, the families where such tragedies occur are generally relatively closed, strictly adhering to the creed of "no publicity of family ugliness".Abused children are often reticent, and some even try to avoid interacting with others.Almost all of these children have serious inferiority complex. They have all made various efforts, but it seems that they will never be able to satisfy their parents.They are often resigned to various forms of abuse from their parents, including psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, and this abuse often begins when the child is very young and continues for many years, even into adulthood.Whether it is because the children never resist, making the parents push forward, or because the children try to resist, the family conflicts intensify, when the conflicts intensify to the point that they must explode, the children will take extreme measures and take risks.Paul Mons pointed out in the book that most of the murder scenes in such cases are very bloody, and they have many things in common with revenge killings.Victims often don't just get shot or stabbed, and perpetrators don't stop when their parents die.This kind of venting killing sometimes continues until all the bullets are fired, or the criminal is exhausted, which is the so-called "overkill".

Another expert is psychiatrist Sue Bloom, who summed up 34 symptoms of child abuse sequelae based on her years of clinical trials.According to the defense lawyers, the following points apply to the Monadez brothers: they dare not sleep alone, their counterparts have a blank memory or amnesia in a certain period of childhood, they have hidden secrets in their hearts, and they hope to leave the family as soon as possible , Like to create an illusory world for yourself, rigid way of thinking, dream of making some achievements to please others, and stealing behaviors, etc. The defendants took their first steps without a hitch. On December 8, 1992, the Los Angeles District Grand Jury rejected the point of view of the Attorney General's Office that the Monardez brothers' motive for committing the crime was "greed", and in the formally issued indictment, it rejected "for the purpose of obtaining financial benefits." "Premeditated murder for the purpose", or "murder for financial gain" is replaced by "premeditated murder".

The Jose-Katie Monadez double murder trial is set to take place in Los Angeles District Superior Court at the San Fernando Valley Government Center. On May 14, 1993, Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled that in order to save time, money, and consider it economically efficient, the two cases of Lyle and Eric Monadez would be heard in the same court , but the two defendants will have their own juries.This means that if some evidence is only against one of the brothers, the other will not be implicated.