A hearing is set for Friday in the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are serving life prison sentences without the possibility of parole for the shotgun murders of their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills mansion more than three decades ago.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic is expected to hear arguments involving the prosecution’s request to withdraw a motion filed during the administration of former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón that sought re-sentencing for the brothers.
Additional hearings are tentatively set for next week on the potential re-sentencing.
New District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced last month that his office will oppose the release of the two, saying then, “Our position is that they shouldn’t get out of jail.”
Hochman said his office will ask the judge to allow prosecutors to withdraw Gascón’s motion for re-sentencing, telling reporters in March that “in no way, shape or form did they deal with what we believe to be one of the key issues …. (which is) the exhibition of full insight and complete responsibility for one’s crimes.”
Erik Menendez, 54, and Lyle Menendez, 57, were convicted of the Aug. 20, 1989, killings of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez. The two claim the killings were committed after years of abuse, including alleged sexual abuse by their father.
A family-led group has been advocating for the two to be released from prison and have accused Hochman of ignoring the positive work the two brothers have done while behind bars.
“Accountability should not be weaponized to deny people the second chance they worked so hard for,” Anamaria Baralt, a cousin of the brothers and part of the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, said March 20. Baralt said the advocates were speaking up “for every person who has been told … that the worst thing they ever did defines them forever.”
In court papers filed last week, prosecutors wrote, “In sum, Erik and Lyle have not changed. They continue to lie about their crimes and the fact that they perjured a wildly mendacious self-defense story to justify killing their parents. Accordingly, Erik and Lyle have not been rehabilitated.”
The filing notes that the prosecution would evaluate whether to take a different position on re-sentencing if the two were “to ever unequivocally and sincerely recognize, acknowledge and accept responsibility for the full range of their criminal conduct.”
“Though this pathway was offered to the Menendez brothers, they have chosen to stubbornly remain buried in their over-30-year-old bunker of lies, deceit and denials,” Assistant Head Deputy Habib Balian and Deputy District Attorneys Seth Carmack and Ethan Milius wrote.
In court papers opposing the district attorney’s motion to withdraw the re-sentencing request, attorneys for the brothers wrote that “the new district attorney’s position that withdrawal of the request for re-sentencing is justified due to insufficient insight into the crime ignores case law, the facts of the main authority in which the district attorney relies, and Erik and Lyle’s repeated taking of responsibility for the shooting and expressions of remorse.”
“It places near-dispositive reliance on outdated, decades-old actions of an 18- and a 21-year-old, actions that have been eclipsed by extraordinary in-custody rehabilitation efforts,” attorneys Cliff Gardner, Mark Geragos and Alexandra Kazarian wrote on behalf of the brothers. “And it ignores the pleas of 30 of the victims’ family members, rendering hollow the new district attorney’s own claim that his office will be the ‘champion of victims out there in our society.’”
The attorneys added that the district attorney within days of taking office had “fired” one of the attorneys who filed the re-sentencing motion, transferred another and appointed Kathleen Cady — a private attorney who had represented the only family member opposed to the re-sentencing — as the head of the office’s Department of Victim Services.
“By all appearances, although the ‘hard work’ of coming up to speed in the Menendez case had not yet begun, hard decisions as to the personnel involved in, and direction of, the Menendez case seemed already to have been made,” according to the defense’s filing.
In a written statement Wednesday, the district attorney said the defense’s argument that the deal is “political” is “devoid of merit.”
Hochman said his office wanted to “make it clear that its request to withdraw its re-sentencing motion is based on the current state of the record and the Menendez brothers’ current and continual failure to show full insight and accept full responsibility for their murders.”
Meanwhile, state parole boards will conduct separate hearings for the brothers on June 13, then send their reports to Gov. Gavin Newsom to help him decide whether the two should receive clemency, the governor said.
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, 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.
The governor said that with the exception of brief clips on social media, he has not watched dramatizations of the Menendez case or documentaries on it “because I don’t want to be influenced by them.”
“I just want to be influenced by the facts,” Newsom said.