District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who said last month that his office will oppose the request of Erik and Lyle Menendez for a new trial, announced that he will provide an update Monday at a news conference on the brothers’ case.
In February, Hochman said he questioned the admissibility and relevance of “new evidence” defense attorneys produced in support of their claim the siblings were sexually abused by their father, but he has yet to take 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.
Erik Menendez, 54, and Lyle Menendez, 57, are pursuing a variety of paths in hopes of being released from prison following the shotgun killings of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, in Beverly Hills on Aug. 20, 1989. They are serving life-without-parole prison sentences but petitioned the governor’s office for a pardon or commutation of their sentences.
Relatives of the Menendez brothers have backed the push for them to be released. They condemned the 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 released by 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.”
In response to their petition, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last month that he had directed a state parole board to conduct a “risk assessment investigation” of Erik and Lyle Menendez, a move that was lauded by the prisoners’ family members.
“This is a pretty exciting time for us as the family of Erik and Lyle Menendez,” their cousin, Anamaria Baralt, told reporters Thursday afternoon, calling it “a positive step toward Erik and Lyle’s release.”
“We are incredibly grateful that Governor Newsom is paying attention to this case,” she said. “For us, it is a huge sigh of relief that someone in a seat of power is paying attention to what we have seen up close since Erik and Lyle have been incarcerated. We have seen their rehabilitation. Erik and Lyle have changed countless lives since their conviction in 1996. Inmates have seen it, corrections officers have seen it and now we need the entire criminal justice system to see it.”
She said it has been “three painful decades” for the family.
Another of the brothers’ cousins, Tamara Goodell, noted that they are “not kids any more” and said that relatives wished that Hochman would have spoken last week about the groups that the brothers have led behind bars when he announced that he would oppose their request for a new trial.
Newsom could rule on the brothers’ request for clemency or commutation of their sentences at any time.
The governor 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, with a hearing set next month in a Van Nuys courtroom.
“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?”’ the governor asked 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.”
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.