I’d love to understand the reasoning behind the Menendez brothers having separate attorneys, particularly why Leslie Abramson was only allowed to defend Eric. If the cases were split due to potential conflicts of interest, wouldn’t having two separate lawyers create more room for discrepancies between their defences? Wouldn’t this also provide the prosecution with more opportunities to poke holes in their stories, especially if the brothers didn’t completely align in their testimonies?
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I’m unfamiliar with the case in particular, but in general a lawyer should avoid putting themselves into a situation where they have two clients with competing interests, and when you have two defendants in the same case, that’s an easy situation to get into. Some information, argument, or witness you bring up could be favorable to defendant 1, but inculpatory of defendant 2. So do you not bring those forth, and fail in you duty to defendant 1? Or do it anyway, and violate your duty to defendant 2? This is known as a concurrent conflict of interest. In addition it’s easier to maintain attorney-client confidentiality with a single client, there’s no chance of mixing up which client confided what. Two different teams of lawyers can easily worth together to share information when they want to. Anyway, you’d probably have to ask Leslie Abramson herself why in this case there was one defense lawyer per defendant.
In a case where there a two co-accused, one possible defence is called the cutthroat defence. In a cutthroat defence, you basically try to blame everything on your co-accused.
If a lawyer represents both A and B, they may no longer use the cutthroat defence for either one. Doing so would create a conflict of interest. Even if the lawyer does not intend to use the cutthroat defence, the development of the trial may open the opportunity where it becomes the best defence. If for example a witness somewhat unexpectedly blames A more than B, B’s lawyer might see that as a chance to fully lean into A as the main perpetrator. However, if they also represent A, they cannot attack A.
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