Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Part I

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The Menendez Brothers in the American Conscience: The Disturbing and Entertainment-Driven Media Campaign in Support of the Menendez Brothers

Well, sometimes it’s reality TV, sometimes it’s just reality. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the one from the other. When you mention the Menendez brothers, all of this comes into a clearer focus, and in particular, in the last several days, the big news has come from California, where a parole panel turned both brothers down for parole. Now, the background to this is very interesting, but the detail of this story and the current context of this story make it very interesting. Tell us a lot about where we are as a society and about the moral nature of our society, and how that is changing in terms of the contours of the time. The Menendez brothers are in jail, and they were given life sentences for the brutal murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty, as she was known, Menendez.

Now, we’re talking about a very prosperous, very rich couple in Beverly Hills, we’re talking about their very privileged sons. At the time of the murders, the brothers were 21 and 18, and the brutal nature of the murders is still shocking. It has to be shocking. They killed both of their parents with multiple gunshot blasts that not only killed them, but mutilated them. It’s the kind of murder that is not only about ending someone’s life, but about sending a very clear message of hatred towards these persons. It was a particularly violent act, the two brothers were convicted of premeditated murder. The background to it also has to do with the fact that, in the days and weeks leading up to their murders, the brothers went on, what the New York Times summarized as, a spending spree. They bought a Porsche, a Rolex, they even bought a restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey, and the state was able to make the case convincingly to the jury that this murder was a premeditated effort by two pampered brothers to basically gain financial advantage, get the money of their parents by murdering them.

Now, it’s also true that, even going back to the original trial, at least one of the Menendez brothers claimed sexual abuse by the boys’ father, and even though both brothers have made affirmations of this in times since the murders, it was pretty clear that the jury at the time really discounted that as having anything to do with the murder. When you look at the buying pattern, when you look at the behavior before and after the murder, these two brothers appeared to have conducted these murders in order, well, it’s one of the oldest motivations for murder on the books, and that is financial gain. The parents were estimated to be worth then, now go back to 1989, $14 million. Again living in Beverly Hills, very significant wealth for the time. Both of the brothers were eventually convicted.

Jurors were simply somewhat stupefied when the two brothers were tried individually. In a further effort, the two were tried together, and the jury in that case came back not only with a guilty verdict, but also with the recommendation of life without parole. That is exactly how they were sentenced. Now, this has come up now because of a parole hearing. Under normal circumstances, a sentence of life without parole would not mean there’s a parole hearing, but the state of California, after the murders and after their trials, revised the criminal code, so that those who were identified as minors at the time of the trial could apply for this relief, the possibility of parole. Now, behind all of this as well was a public relations effort, a massive public relations effort on the part of these brothers. This was aided and abetted by the media, a Netflix series, and other things.

Members of the family, friends of the Menendez brothers really sought to present them as having been rehabilitated and to claim that, A, they either were falsely convicted, or B, they’ve already served their sentence or paid their due and they should be released from prison. There are some huge worldview issues here for us to take apart. 

First of all, even though it may be that the vast majority of the people hearing the briefing today weren’t born at the time of these murders in 1989, the fact is that the brutality of these murders and the fact that the boys themselves, the couple’s sons, were arrested as the lead suspects in the murders was absolutely shocking at the time in the late 1980s, especially in the early 1990s, as the trial process went forward.

These were privileged boys who murdered their parents and then claimed that they did so because of some pattern of abuse, and even as there were some reports about this in the past, the fact is that law enforcement and others really did not take those claims very seriously, and besides that, it really wasn’t compatible with some of the evidence of the behavior of the brothers before and after, when they basically acted like the motivation was financial, because they spent the money beforehand and after the murders, they spent even more money. They were eventually apprehended, and I said they were eventually sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but since the change in the law, they became, at least cases that could lead to parole. In both cases, however, just in the last several days, the parole board system there in California turned both brothers individually. These are separate hearings, but they turned them down, and it’s really interesting to hear at least some of the language that was used when the brothers were turned down in their effort for parole.

In the hearing for Eric Menendez, Robert Barton identified as the presiding commissioner of the two person panel said, “Contrary to your supporters’ beliefs, you have not been a model prisoner,” and then there was evidence of just how short of a model prisoner he had become, some of his behavior. Similarly, when it came to both brothers, there were some pretty strong statements made by officials related to the parole process, of why the brothers were not granted parole, but there’s an interesting statement, when you think about how that began, in which the person said, “Contrary to your supporters’ beliefs.” Supporters? Yeah, here’s one of the odd developments in our time, and it points to something we really do need to think about in Christian terms. That odd development is that, even the most heinous crimes and the most horrifying criminal acts get rebranded as something interesting and more than you thought was here in later generations. Decades later, we’re being told, supposedly, we now know circumstances that are different. 

But the reality is that, here’s the thing, the prosecutors have brought the case, they’re gone. The jury who convicted the young men, they’re gone. The parents whom they murdered, gone. All we’re left with is two celebrity criminals. Now, just think about that for a moment. What does it mean that we have celebrity criminals? In some sense, this isn’t exactly new. Just think of, say, the legend of Robin Hood. He stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Sometimes even more notorious, even violent criminals have been romanticized. Some of the gangsters from the 1920s, Al Capone, John Dillinger, and others, they have been romanticized. Their exploits have been made into film, and even when they are depicted in criminal acts, they’re sometimes well presented in an attractive, romantic way. This is a problem in our society and it’s been around for a very, very long time, but you have to add to that now the psychotherapeutic categories and all the rest. Now, I have no knowledge of the background of these two young men. They’re not young anymore.

They’re now well into middle age, but the fact is I have no special knowledge of what happened in that family before these murders. I do not know if there was abuse or, if there was abuse, I do not know the circumstances. I do know this. What is happening right now is a part of a predictable process. I want us to note that long after a murder, long after a crime, this can be re-conceptualized in the minds of the American people, and this is especially true given the power of entertainment and drama. If it can retell the story in such a way that millions of Americans are told, “It wasn’t what you thought it was,” it’s absolutely amazing how a public relations strategy can be used in favor of murderers. I also want to note that it’s a very interesting thing to claim, “They didn’t do it,” or, “They weren’t guilty of the crimes,” or, “Yeah, they did it, but it was for this reason.”

Those arguments don’t stand together, and the fact that all of them are basically being made in this case is another indication of the moral complexity. I don’t intend to talk about this longer other than to say it tells us something, that millions of millions of people seem to be captivated by these two murderers, going back to a murder that took place brutally on August the 20th of 1989, and the parents have been dead. Let’s just state the obvious. They’ve been dead since 1989. They can’t speak for themselves, and honestly, the horror of murdering mother and father recedes in the background, and all you’re left with is two celebrity criminals. Some legal observers in California think that it’s probably only a matter of time before they are released. Why? Because sometimes even public pressure and all the rest just leads to the fact that celebrity criminals are looked at more positively, and even two brothers who murdered their parents may eventually be paroled.

It’s another weird sign of our times, that one of the things we note is the entertainment finds all this saleable to the American people, and that it’s very telling that public relations campaigns are now conducted for criminals, indeed murderers, in jail. Now, another side of the entire question of murder comes up with a headline given to us by the Washington Post, “Trump calls for major expansion of death penalty for murder in DC.” That’s the District of Columbia, and of course, to the background to this is the President’s intervention in criminal justice, the policing, and the entire system there in the District of Columbia. He has the constitutional right to do that for a matter of specified days, and the President is really now loud about the crime rate, even the murder rate, in DC, and he’s linking it to leniency when it comes to sentences for premeditated murder and the fact that the death penalty is very seldom applied.

But there’s another big moral insight here, even the Washington Post acknowledges it, and that is that one of the big reasons why, even as the death penalties on the books, it’s applied fairly rarely, I think that’s fair to say, in the District of Columbia. It’s because of jury nullification. As The Post tells us, “In DC, prosecutors can seek the death penalty for certain crimes that fall under federal statutes, which includes some, but not all homicides, but a death sentence can only be imposed if a jury agrees. A significant challenge for prosecutors in a city where opposition to capital punishment is widespread.” In other contexts, this is known as jury nullification. It’s a jury modification in which a jury says, “Okay, we know that the death penalty is on the books, and yes, in some sense, this crime may fit the definition of that which justifies the death penalty. The fact is, we don’t like the death penalty, so we are not going to cooperate as a jury with the application of the death penalty,” and it shows you how you have, in society, a breakdown on so many of these issues. 

Christians do not celebrate the death penalty, but the Bible is very clear that the death penalty is entirely appropriate, indeed, the Bible commands it to be done when there is the premeditated murder of human being, and especially as you have that even in the Old Testament law, and generalized sense, you have it in the Noahic Covenant in Genesis 9, in which it is made very clear that the punishment for premeditated murder, the destruction of an image bearer of the Creator, is to forfeit one’s own life. You look at this, and it’s just a reminder to us that we tend to have a malleable emotional determination when it comes to criminal law and moral judgment. Over time, criminals end up being romanticized.

Their victims simply disappear in the mists of memory. That’s another bit of evidence for the fact that justice delayed sometimes really does become justice denied, and it also tells us that moral judgment against two brothers who brutally murdered their parents wanes over time. That waning of moral attention really should tell us something.

Part II

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The Culture of Death Creeps Forward in Uruguay: Uruguay’s Push for Assisted Suicide, And Secularization is a Big Part of the Picture

Next, just recently, we talked about what’s taking place in Canada with assisted suicide. The headline in the article, remember, was “Canada is Killing Itself,” and we were talking about the predictable results of embracing assisted suicide as a policy. Eventually, it becomes widespread. It’s becoming one of the major causes of death in the nation of Canada, but now we’re going to go south. Not north, we’re going to go south, we’re going to go to Uruguay, and here is the interesting story in The Economist. It’s entitled “The Freedom to Die,” and it turns out the Uruguay is poised to adopt a very liberal law on assisted suicide.

It’s not exactly like the law in Canada. In some ways, it’s a little more restrictive. In other ways, it’s even less restrictive. In Uruguay, the interesting thing is that we’re talking about a South American country, rather than a liberal European country, particularly in Northern Europe. We’re not talking about Canada, we’re talking about South America, but here, Uruguay has been an exception before. It is a generally more liberal nation, far more liberal than most Americans probably have any idea. I mentioned that this law is, in some ways, a little more restrictive than the Canadian law, but in other ways, it’s even less restrictive. “It’s strikingly liberal,” that’s what The Economist says. Remember, this is a major British media source, and it describes the legislation as strikingly liberal, “More so than a current effort in Britain, where assisted dying will be limited to those with a terminal illness who will anyway die within six months. Uruguay’s bill,” says The Economist, “Imposes no such time limits. Moreover, it is open to people with an incurable illness that generates unbearable suffering, even if it is not terminal.” 

Okay, now that’s a very significant statement, and you’ll notice the slipperiness of the culture of death. The culture of death creeps forward with this kind of legislation, this kind of policy, and this kind of slipperiness. I read it exactly as The Economist reports, so listen to this, “Moreover, it is open to people with an incurable illness that generates unbearable suffering.” Okay, we’re then told that it doesn’t have to be terminal, so we have the category of terminal, then we have incurable, and then we have unbearable. We need to note that the law in Uruguay does not require terminal. That is to say any kind of imminent death. It doesn’t have to bring about any death on a particular timetable because of the illness.

All it has to be is incurable. Now, before we rush past that too fast, let’s just think about that. There are an awful lot of things that are incurable that aren’t even all that horrible, but here, we are told it is only a restriction that it’d be incurable and that people have unbearable suffering. Okay, so here’s the other problem. Unbearable suffering. Our sympathy should immediately be engendered. We are sympathetic with anyone who’s suffering, but how do you define unbearable suffering? The interesting thing is that, in most of these societies, very quickly it goes from some estimation of physical suffering to a definition of psychic or emotional suffering. Well, that’s not quantifiable. Basically, it becomes a permission structure for anyone to demand assisted death at any time, because eventually, you can come up with something that’s incurable. It doesn’t say terminal, just incurable.

It’s a continuing thing, and then to say it’s unbearable. Pretty soon, you’re moving from clearly medical situations, to the merely psychological situations or emotional and mental suffering. It’s really sad that the culture of death is just evident here and moving towards yet another country that is liberalizing its laws, poised to adopt a very liberal law. When The Economist simply says, “The law of the Uruguay’s lower house passed is strikingly liberal,” okay, if The Economist says it’s strikingly liberal, you can take it to the bank it’s strikingly liberal. The fact that The Economist has given us a full page and more in terms of its print edition tells us they see this as a sign of the times. 

But it’s also interesting that The Economist, which is a secular newspaper, it recognizes there’s a theological dimension here. First of all, the theological dimension appears in the opposition to the bill. Where’s the opposition coming from? Well, it’s coming largely from, “The religious.” Interesting. Opposition to the idea of assisted death, of assisted suicide, it’s coming from the religious. That’s not an accident, and we have to look at the fact that Uruguay is one of the most secular countries in the world, and it has been for a long time. What some would call the separation of church and state, the disestablishment of religious belief, it happened in Uruguay in the early 20th century. Long before it happened elsewhere. Legalized abortion happened there many, many decades before it took place in other South American nations, such as Chile. We’re talking about a country that has been a standout in South America for its liberalism and its secularization for a long time, and here’s where, in the worldview connection, Christians just need to wait and say, “Okay, here’s a connection, social liberalism and theological secularization. Those two go together.”

We understand why they go together, and they almost always go together, and in this case, even The Economist thinks it’s noteworthy that these two have gone together. It cites the opposition of the Catholic archbishop there in Uruguay, but it is also interesting to hear the Catholic archbishop say, “Secularization in Uruguay has reached the soul, the culture,” and then The Economist says, “Indeed, every country in Latin America, except Uruguay, has a majority who say they’re Christian.” In this case, it’s really interesting that Uruguay is a standout. It’s a standout in that, among all the nations in the region, on the continent, it’s the one in which a minority of citizens identify as religious, a minority identify as Christian. In every other nation, The Economist tells us, in the entire region, in the entire continent you have no other nation that has a majority of citizens that does not claim to be Christian.

All right, so now you have the connection between the approval for assisted suicide, the impulse to move towards the culture of death, in euthanasia-assisted suicide. You have it in a country like Uruguay, which has been increasingly secularized since the early 20th century. You have the fact that Uruguay is both more secular than any other nation in the entire region and it is more socially liberal than any other nation in the entire region, and we understand how these things are linked together. It’s entirely explicable, explainable that those two things would go together. Now, the interesting thing for Christians is the chicken-and-the-egg question, “Which came first?” In this case, it is abundantly clear that the secularization came before the social liberalism. That tells us something. In a society where you have plummeting rates of Christian belief, you’re going to have increasing rates of social liberalism. It’s not an accident, the two things go together. 

Okay, I think we have to make the connection that one of the things we see in this country is, and the fact that we see it elsewhere around the world as well, is the fact that increasing secularization means increasing liberalism, which means decreasing support for, say, anything like anti-abortion legislation or moral movement against euthanasia and assisted suicide. When secularization goes up, guess what else goes up? The death rate goes up, at least from things like abortion and assisted suicide. Not only that, murder is discounted. It’s an amazing thing. Not only is the sanctity and dignity of every single human life discounted in the womb or in the hospice, it is also discounted in the courtroom, and I think it’s important that we, as Christians, understand all that really does go together. It’s not an accident.

Part III

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Capital Confusion: Current Debates About the Death Penalty Reveal Big Worldview Shift

Okay, while we are talking about our necessary struggle in defense of life, I want to conclude by going to the state of Texas. A couple of very interesting stories on the abortion issue coming out of Texas. One of them has to do with the fact that the Wall Street Journal is reporting the new phenomenon of men suing over abortions undertaken by their partners. Now, I want us to note the moral signal in the word “Partners.” What’s not there is “Wife.” Marriage is really taken off the table as a part of the moral equation. What’s not even there is girlfriend, you even take girlfriend off the table. This is just partner, and when the partner becomes pregnant, if the partner is seeking an abortion, some men are saying that, if it was against their will, this is wrong, and they’re trying to bring a lawsuit over it. The pro-abortion people in Texas are going crazy.

One pro-abortion lawyer referred to the theory whereby a man could sue his partner over an abortion of his child as well as her child. One of the abortion rights activist lawyers called it, “A wackadoo theory.” I assume that’s a specialized legal term. But we are also told this, “Abortion opponents say men suffer harm when their unborn children are aborted and have legitimate legal claims, including for wrongful death, against doctors and others who helped the mother do it.” Kristen Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said,  “We’re starting to have fathers who feel they can speak out and speak up for their rights and for the rights of the child.” I just want to say that this is not just about abortion, it’s about everything, and so as is so often the case, this points to a complex of moral issues. 

“We’re talking about husbands, boyfriends, and exes.” That’s the lead sentence in this article. There is just a different moral importance when it comes to husbands, boyfriends, and exes. It’s really hard for me to think that an ex or a boyfriend is going to have much traction in an argument like this, certainly culture-wide, and it just shows you how the culture of death rides on other things. The culture of death rides on the decline of marriage, the culture of death rides on premarital sex or extramarital sex, the culture of death rides on abortion, and it’s going to be very, very hard to pry abortion away from the agents of the culture of death and social liberalization, but I want to say, yes, I am all for this effort. Use the lawsuits if they’ll be helpful in saving unborn human lives.

If nothing else, it simply points to the fact that, when you’re talking about an unborn child, you’re talking about a child, and the child has two parents, not one. The pro-abortionist feminist logic that only the woman is an issue of moral importance, that has to go away. It is the woman and the child, but it is also the woman and the child and the father. We, as Christians, understand we’ve got to make all the moral parties fully evident here. 

Along similar lines, it is also interesting. NBC News has reported about this along with others, a Texas man has been arrested and he’s been accused of spiking his partner. There’s the word again, “Partner.” Not wife, not even girlfriend, not fiance. It’s just “Partner.” Spiking a romantic partner’s drink with abortion-inducing medication and ending her pregnancy without her consent. One man, he’s 38 years old, was booked on suspicion of tampering with evidence and capital murder.

Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He was arrested on suspicion of tampering with evidence and capital murder? Capital murder is as serious as it gets. We’re going right back to the conversation about premeditated murder and the death penalty. I think it’s the right language to use when it comes to the unborn child. My point is I don’t think a lot of the people who are using it in this sense actually mean what they say. I could hope they do, but that would mean they would have to pull back all support for abortion, period. It means that it’s not just a woman’s choice, because again, that seems to be the issue here. A woman saying that this abortion was administered without her choice. I want to come back and say the abortion was wrong in the first place. How can it be premeditated murder if the partner does it without the woman’s consent, but it’s a woman’s right of her own body if she does it by her consent? How in the world can that be a morally meaningful distinction?

We’ll be tracking this developing story with you. It does show us the moral confusions of the age, and at least a part of our responsibility. A big part of our responsibility is to see through the confusion and see clearly, even if no one else does. That is our job.