Leslie Hope Abramson (born October 6, 1943) is an American criminal defense lawyer famous for his role in Lyle and Erik Menendez's legal defense.
Video Leslie Abramson
Education
Born in Flushing, Queens, New York, Abramson graduated from Queens College, and in 1969 received Juris Doctor (J.D.) from UCLA School of Law.
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Careers
Initial career
Abramson was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1970. He began his career at the Los Angeles County Defense Office, where he worked for six years. He entered private practice as a defense attorney in 1976, and developed a reputation as a fierce lawyer for his client. He was twice named court attorney this year by L.A. Criminal Courts Bar Association. During his career, only one client he represented received a death sentence - a double assassin named Ricky Sanders, who shot eleven men in a refrigerator at a Bob's Big Boy restaurant, killing four of them.
In 1988, Abramson succeeded in getting a verdict of murder with probation, rather than murder, for the 17-year-old Arnel Salvatierra, who had killed his father. Abramson argued that the father was rude. In 1990, Abramson won the acquittal. Khalid Parwez, "a Pakistani-born gynecologist accused of strangling and tearing his 11-year-old son", presents an alibi for Parwez, and on the grounds that Parwez's brother, who has returned to Pakistan, is likely the culprit.
Menendez experiment
Abramson gained national attention in the early 1990s, when he represented Erik Menendez in his trial for the murder of his parents, again displaying parental abuse as a defense for alleged crimes. He caused controversy when it was revealed during the trial that he had erased Erik's psychiatrist and rewrote the parts of the doctor's records. When asked by the judge about it, he twice requests his Fifth Amendment against the allegations, and then confirms that each discussion is protected by the attorney-client privilege. As a result, the investigation was launched by the country bar. After a three-year investigation, the government bar closed the case "after deciding that there was insufficient evidence to conclude he broke the rules of ethics in a Menendez brothers re-trial."
Post-Menendez Careers
In 1997, Abramson published a book, Ready Defense: Life in the Criminal Laws' Cull . In 2004, he was hired by Phil Spector, who is accused of sniper actress Lana Clarkson at his home in the suburb of Alhambra, California, replacing former prosecutor Robert Shapiro. He resigned from representing Spector over the conflict between them; he was later convicted of murder, under different counsel.
In popular culture
In 1993, when the trial was in progress, he was parodied on Saturday Night Live, where he was portrayed by Julia Sweeney, along with John Malkovich and Rob Schneider as Lyle and Erik Menendez. Sweeney again describes Abramson the following year as a talk show host defending the actions of Tonya Harding (played by Melanie Hutsell) and Slobodan Milo? Evi? (played by Patrick Stewart).
In the 1994 television episode of Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills, Abramson was played by Margaret Whitton.
In 2017, Edie Falco described Abramson in the first season Law & amp; The Message of True Crime , based on Menendez's trial.
Personal life
Abramson married a pharmacist whom he divorced in 1969, with whom he had a daughter, Laine. He married Rutter's Tim Rutten reporter, and the couple adopted a son.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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