LOS ANGELES – Commissioners for Lyle and Eric Menendez said Wednesday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state’s parole board to investigate whether the siblings pose a risk to the public if they were released in prison for nearly 30 years for the 1989 murder of their parents.
According to Mark Jelagos and Cliff Gardner, the board will do a “comprehensive risk assessment” on whether the siblings have been rehabilitated. The defense attorney said they appreciate Newsom’s decision.
“Families recognize that the governor’s actions do not mean he will commute through text. Instead, this first step reflects the governor’s decision to at least get the information necessary to make a fair decision about whether Eric and Lyle made the necessary efforts to live outside of prison 35 years later,” Geragos and Gardner said in a statement.
No timeline was conducted for the board’s investigation. The governor’s office says that risk assessments will be followed by a hearing to allow victims’ families and prosecutors to participate in the process.
Newsom said in a podcast Wednesday that the state is doing due diligence and its goal is to ensure transparency.
“The board’s questions are pretty simple. Will Eric and Lyle Menendez make what we call an unreasonable risk to public safety what we are now?” Newsom said.
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The state’s legal standard for parole is whether prisoners pose an unreasonable risk to public safety. That must be decided before the governor decides to commute.
The brothers pursue multiple paths to win their freedom: tolerance, responsiveness, new trials from Newsom. Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Friday he was opposed to the brothers’ new trial, but has not decided whether to support resententenging bids that could lead to their freedom. Newsom says he will not make a generous decision until Hochman finishes reviewing the case.
The proposed resting for the brothers is still set to be featured at march hearings, and they will soon qualify for parole.
The brothers were convicted of the murder of Entertainment’s executive father Jose and his mother, Kitty Menendez, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. They have launched their latest bids for freedom in recent years after lawyers said new evidence of their father’s sexual abuse emerged and that they are supported by most of their extended families.
Hochman said he filed an informal response urged Los Angeles County Superior Court to reject a habeas pursuit petition filed by his brother’s attorney in 2023.
Hochman questioned evidence of abuse and challenged the claim that the murder constituted self-defense, saying it was not related to the incident. He also characterized the brothers’ own sexual abuse testimony as unreliable as they gave five different explanations of why they committed the murder.
The Menendez family called Hochman’s decision “aversion” and said they “trustworthy the traumas their brothers had experienced.
The family said in a statement last week that they didn’t need new evidence as the judicial system had failed their brothers at the time and “still failed them.”
Lyle Menendez, who was 21 at the time, and Eric Menendez, 18, admitted to killing their parents with a shotgun, but said they might be trying to kill them to prevent disclosure of their father, Erik’s long-term abuse.
Prosecutors said there was no evidence of abuse at the time, and many details of the 1996 brother’s sexual abuse story were not permitted at trial. Prosecutors accused the brother of killing his parents with money.
Former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon last year recommended that the brothers resid on the 50-year ent. Gascon lost his re-election bid for Hochman in November.
Possible resting takes into account the rehabilitation of the siblings while in prison. Hochman met with his brother’s relatives when reviewing their lawsuit, including thousands of pages of prison records.
The case gained new traction after Netflix began streaming the true crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez’s Tale.” ”
By Christopher Weber
