Erik Menéndez and Lyle Menéndez could be one step close to being released from prison after they were resentenced to 50 years to life with parole on Tuesday.
The brothers were sentenced to life without parole in 1996 for murdering their parents, José Menéndez and Kitty Menéndez, in 1989.
Their story resurfaced in the public discourse after Netflix released a documentary and a true crime drama series about the case last year.
The drama, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story,” became an instant hit and stayed at the top of Netflix’s most-watched chart for two weeks, while the documentary, “The Menéndez Brothers,” which came out days later, featured new interviews with the siblings.
A title card at the end of the documentary briefly mentions that the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition in May 2023 to vacate their murder convictions. But both Netflix projects leave out most details about the brothers’ attempts to appeal their sentences.
Lyle Menéndez and Erik Menéndez’s attorneys said new evidence could prove their father abused them
The brothers admitted to killing their parents before their first trial, so the jury was tasked with understanding why.
While the prosecution argued the pair wanted their parents’ money, the brothers said that they acted in self-defense because their father physically and sexually abused them, enabled by their mother. They said they feared their father would eventually kill them.
The brothers’ first trial ended in 1994 with a hung jury. In the second trial, Judge Stanley M. Weisberg limited testimonies related to the brothers’ abuse claims and removed the jury’s option of voting on a manslaughter charge. The jury chose that the brothers were guilty of murder in the second trial.
The brothers petitioned an appeal in 2023, which journalist Robert Rand, who has reported on their case since the ’90s, shared on X. The petition included a letter Erik Menéndez sent to his cousin Andy Cano a year before the murders, where he writes that he is avoiding his father and alludes to being afraid of him.
The petition also includes a declaration from Roy Roselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo, who was signed to the record label where José Menéndez was an executive. He said José Menéndez drugged and raped him when he was a teenager, and made him perform sexual acts on two other occasions.
The brothers’ attorney hoped this would prove they were defending themselves against abuse to get the lesser charge of manslaughter.
The creators of “Monsters” and “The Menéndez Brothers” said they didn’t want to get involved in the case
This new evidence was released partway through the production of “Monsters” and “The Menéndez Brothers,” which may explain why it wasn’t included.
“The Menéndez Brothers” producers Ross Dinerstein and Rebecca Evans told The Hollywood Reporter in October 2024 that they worked on the documentary for four years and wrapped shooting in 2023.
Evans said: “The habeas was filed in 2023, and so for us, when we were making the documentary, we felt like, we’re not here to litigate a case. We’re not here to present evidence, or new evidence in that way, alongside the attorneys. Our feeling was that this was a story that took place then, and this was all of our research on it.”
“Monsters” was also likely written before May 2023, even though the production was delayed due to the writers’ and actors’ strike in 2023.
“Monsters” co-creator Ryan Murphy told Variety in September 2024: “I believe in justice, but I don’t believe in being a part of that machine. That’s not my job. My job as an artist was to tell a perspective in a particular story.”
He added that the series was “the best thing that has happened to the Menéndez brothers in 30 years” because it rekindled public interest in their case.
But Laurie L. Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told Business Insider in October 2024 that a true crime series must present solid evidence to make a difference in a courtroom.
“In terms of it being the best thing that ever happened, only if it leads to evidence to actually overturn the case, which I still think is a real upward battle,” she said.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney started the process of resentencing the brothers in late 2024.
On October 3, 2024, George Gascón, the Los Angeles County District Attorney, told a press conference that his office was reviewing the brothers’ case.
Later that month, the LA County District Attorney’s office told Business Insider in an email that the “process was already underway” before “Monsters” premiered, and a hearing was set for November 29.
On October 24, 2024, Gascón told a press conference that he had moved the decision date because his office was “flooded with requests for information” after “Monsters” premiered.
“I decided to move this forward because, quite frankly, we did not have enough resources to handle all their requests, and one of the things that I thrive to do in this office is to be very transparent in everything that we do,” he said.
Gascón said that he would recommend the brothers be sentenced to 50 years to life and be eligible for parole immediately.
“I came to a place where I believe that under the law, resentencing is appropriate, and I am going to recommend that to a court tomorrow,” Gascon said.
Gascón said it was right that the brothers were convicted of murder, but that he believed they had been rehabilitated in prison.
In a resentencing memo filed on October 24, 2024, deputies in the DA office’s resentencing unit wrote that the Menéndez brothers “have demonstrated they no longer present a public safety risk” and that their “current sentence is no longer in furtherance of justice.”
The resentencing is separate from the brothers’ petition to vacate their sentences, meaning they’d still have to appear before a parole board to argue their case before being freed.
The same day, Gascón told CNN that he disagreed with the petition’s argument and thought resentencing was more appropriate.
“I think that the conviction was appropriate given what was there,” Gascón said.
In October 2024, Gascón also supported the Menéndez brothers’ petition to Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, for clemency, which was separate from the court hearings. Newsom has full power to reduce their sentence or grant a pardon, which means the brothers now have three paths to freedom.
The new District Attorney opposed the Menéndez brothers’ request for freedom.
Gascón wasn’t re-elected and the resentencing hearing was pushed back to allow the new DA, Nathan Hochman, to review the evidence.
In February, Hochman told a press conference that his office asked the court to deny the Menéndez brothers’ habeas corpus petition. He said he believed the evidence they presented wasn’t new, wasn’t relevant to their self-defense claims, and did not meet the legal standards for petitioning.
The Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, an initiative that includes the brothers’ family members and is advocating for their release, told ABC News at the time that Hochman’s comments dismissed the brothers’ abuse.
“We are profoundly disappointed by his remarks, in which he effectively tore up new evidence and discredited the trauma they experienced,” the coalition said. “To say it played no role in Erik and Lyle’s action is to ignore decades of psychological research and basic human understanding.”
In March, Hochman told a press conference that his office was motioning to oppose the brothers’ resentencing, saying they had not fully accepted responsibility for their crimes because they continued to say they acted in self-defense. Hochman also said the brothers have made 20 lies before and during their trial and only admitted to four of them.
The judge, Michael Jesic, denied the motion, so the court continued the resentencing hearings.
Amid the drama, Newsom also requested the brothers’ parole board in February to carry out a “comprehensive risk assessment” investigation into whether the brothers pose “an unreasonable risk to the public” if they are released.
Judge Michael Jesic resentenced the Menéndez brothers to 50 years to life with parole.
A hearing was held on May 9 to discuss the parole board’s risk assessment. ABC News reported that the assessment found that the brothers pose a moderate risk to the community if released because they broke multiple rules in prison.
But on Tuesday, Jesic approved the brothers’ resentencing, meaning they can now appeal to a parole board to be released. This process can take years, but the brothers continue to pursue the petition and clemency cases, which could speed up their release.
ABC News reported that the brothers’ hearing for the clemency case is on June 13.
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