dollars. they were spending money like they were drunken sailors. now lyle and erik menendez face the death penalty, first-degree murder. greedy rich kids kill ozzie and harriet on a sunday night in beverly hills, and there s much more to the story than that. the courtroom at the l.a. superior courthouse in van nuys was actually a very tiny courtroom, and so there were a dozen media people that got to see the trial in the courtroom every day. writer dominic dunn appeared to hear opening statements. i m just a writer here covering this. i had just gotten out of school and started as a cub reporter at this legal newspaper. i got one of the seats in the courtroom. there were the lawyers and the brothers. my editors and i knew from the get-go that it was going to be captivating as [bleep]. okay, now opening statements by the prosecution. thank you, your honor, and good morning. the only time i ve ever thrown up during a trial was right before opening statement
just ended, and one thing that came out of the o.j. simpson case was that nobody wanted to put cameras in their courtroom again after that. the judge made a ruling, a few weeks before the second trial started, that he was not going to allow the camera in the courtroom. in order for tv stations to cover menendez two, they had to go old school and bring in a sketch artist. but the way it turned out is people were still wanting to hear every detail of this case. mic check, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 and so every time there was a break in court, i would go outside on the courthouse steps and report live everything that happened in the courtroom. the prosecution is differing this time in that they are focusing so much on the really gruesome ugly details of what two shotguns can do to two people. and the big, big, big change was that david conn took over as the prosecutor. this is a clear-cut case of first-degree murder, and we hope that we will convince a jury of that this time around.