Erik and Lyle Menendez will appear before the California Parole Board for a hearing on June 13, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday. Following the hearing, the three-month investigation into their behavior over decades in prison and any risk they pose if released will be submitted to the California governor’s office and a Superior Court judge. At that point, both will decide whether the convicted killers should be resentenced and subsequently released, granted clemency or remain in prison.
The Menendez brothers, who are serving double life sentences with no chance of parole for the 1989 murder of their parents, launched several legal avenues to regain their freedom beginning in 2023. This was when new, compelling evidence lent significant weight to their long-standing defense that they gunned down their parents at their Beverly Hills home in an act of self-defense stemming from years of sexual abuse at the hands of their father, José Menendez.
Now, three decades after their second joint jury trial ended with a guilty verdict and two lifetime sentences for the brothers, the legal avenues to their resentencing have nearly evaporated. On Tuesday, new Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman moved to withdraw the sentencing recommendation request for the brothers, which was rushed into the courts by his predecessor, George Gascón, amid a reelection bid.
But Hochman won the election in November and the new D.A. has expressed his opinion that the brothers’ case does not merit a fresh trial, and that he does not believe the new evidence discovered nearly 30 years after their TV sensation trial is strong enough for a reevaluation. Hochman on Tuesday claimed the brothers have not owned up to their guilt and have been telling lies for 30 years regarding their parents, who the brothers have claimed were going to kill them in 1989, under the threat of José being exposed as a sex abuser of his own sons.
“If the Menendez brothers, at some point, unequivocally, sincerely and fully accept complete responsibility for all their criminal actions, acknowledge that the self-defense defense was phony and their parents weren’t going to kill them … and finally come clean with the court, with the public, with the DA’s office, with their own family members and acknowledge all these lies … in the future, the court can weigh these new insights into making a determination as to whether they now qualify for rehabilitation and re-sentencing. And the [DA’s office] will do the same,” Hochman said.
On Tuesday, Newsom said on his podcast This is Gavin Newsom that Hochman’s decision to effectively kill the resentencing bid will not have an impact on any decisions on whether or not to support clemency for the brothers.
“The law’s gonna be followed. And if the law’s followed, they should be out,” the brothers attorney, Mark Geragosm said in an interview with NBC News this week.
During his press conference this week, Hochman discussed the premeditation of the brothers’ killing of their parents. “After Jose and Kitty Menendez were fatally shot, the brothers allegedly shot them again in the kneecaps to try to make the slayings look like a gang shooting, ” Hochman said.
Robert Rand, a journalist and author of the definitive book on the 30-plus year Menendez story, refuted this to The Hollywood Reporter, saying this is an egregious misstatement.
“That is totally false,” Rand says, discussing the case. ”I’ve seen the crime, I’ve seen pictures… they weren’t even low. Crime scene pictures of Jose’s knees show there were wounds to his thighs but there were no wounds to his knees. Okay, so, you know, right there alone, that’s just wrong. I mean, that’s fake, that’s false.”
