Gov. Gavin Newsom has directed the state parole board to conduct a “risk assessment investigation” of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are serving life-without-parole prison sentences for the shotgun slayings of their parents in Beverly Hills but have petitioned the governor’s office for a pardon or commutation of their sentences.
Newsom described the probe as a common procedure carried out by the state, but he had previously indicated he would defer any decision on the Menendez brothers’ case to local courts and prosecutors. The brothers’ attorneys have filed court motions seeking a new trial or re-sentencing in hopes to have them released.
But Newsom now says he has asked the state parole board to at least prepare the risk assessment as part of their applications for commutation.
“The question for the board is a simple one — do Erik and Lyle Menendez, do they pose a current what we call ‘unreasonable risk to public safety,”‘ Newsom said in videotaped remarks first reported by TMZ. “The risk assessment will be conducted as they are typically conducted — by experts in public safe as well as forensic psychologists.”
Newsom said the findings will be shared with the Los Angeles Superior Court judge presiding over the case, as well as with the district attorney and defense attorneys.
“There’s no guarantee of outcome here,” Newsom said. “My office conducts dozens and dozens of these clemency reviews on a consistent basis, but this process simply provides more transparency, which I think is important in this case, as well as provides us more due diligence before I make any determination for clemency.”
Erik Menendez, 54, and Lyle Menendez, 57, are pursuing a variety of paths in hopes of being released from prison following the killings of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, on Aug. 20, 1989.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced last week that his office will oppose the brothers’ request for a new trial — questioning the admissibility and relevance of “new evidence” defense attorneys have produced in support of their claim the siblings were sexually abused by their father.
Hochman has not yet taken a stance on their motion for re-sentencing. Defense attorneys are asking to have their sentence reduced in a way that would either make them eligible for parole consideration or for release on time already served.
Newsom could also rule on the brothers’ request for clemency or commutation of their sentences at any time.
Relatives of the Menendez brothers are backing their push to be released. They condemned last week’s announcement by Hochman that he would oppose the bid for a new trial.
“District Attorney Nathan Hochman took us right back to 1996 today,” according to a statement from the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, which includes Menendez family members and supporters. “He opened the wounds we have spent decades trying to heal. He didn’t listen to us. We are profoundly disappointed by his remarks, in which he effectively tore up new evidence and discredited the trauma they experienced.”
The family continued, “To suggest that the years of abuse couldn’t have led to the tragedy in 1989 is not only outrageous, but also dangerous. Abuse does not exist in a vacuum. It leaves lasting scars, rewires the brain, and traps victims in cycles of fear and trauma. To say it played no role in Erik and Lyle’s action is to ignore decades of psychological research and basic human understanding.”
Two members of the coalition had been scheduled to hold a virtual news conference Wednesday afternoon to give an update on the case, but that event has been rescheduled for Thursday.
In a 2023 court petition, attorneys for the brothers pointed to two new pieces of evidence they contend corroborate the brothers’ allegations of long-term sexual abuse at the hands of their father — a letter allegedly written by Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano in early 1989 or late 1988, eight months before the August 1989 killings, and recent allegations by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, that he too was sexually abused by Jose Menendez as a teenager.
Interest in the case surged following the release of a recent Netflix documentary and dramatic series.
During their two highly publicized trials, the brothers did not dispute that they killed their parents, but claimed self-defense, citing decades of alleged physical and sexual abuse by their father. Prosecutors countered that the killings were financially motivated, pointing to lavish spending sprees by the brothers after the killings.