On the potential cusp of freedom after decades behind bars for the 1989 shotgun murder of their parents, Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez will have to wait a bit longer to know their fates.
In a rebuke to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, the Menendez brothers were resentenced May 13 to 50 years to life, which makes them eligible for parole. At the much delayed hearing, L.A. Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic ruled that Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, did not pose “an unreasonable risk” if they were released, almost 30 years after their 1996 sentencing to life without parole.
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To that end, the siblings’ scheduled June 13 clemency board hearings ordered earlier this year by Gov. Gavin Newsom have shifted. “Since the ruling makes them immediately eligible for parole consideration as youth offenders, it is the Board’s intent to convert the June 13, 2025, clemency hearings to initial parole suitability hearings,” Scott Wyckoff of the state Board of Parole Hearings said last week as the governor withdrew the probes into potential clemency in lieu of Jesic’s ruling.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation now says those hearings will take place August 21-22.
Lyle Menendez addressed the decision online:
The CDCR did not respond to request for comment from Deadline over the postponement. A representative for Menendez lawyers Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos had no comment.
Erik and Lyle Menendez are both being held at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego. Even with the change in their sentencing status and those hearings kicked down the line, the siblings’ clemency application remains open in the governor’s office, though it is pretty much moot at this point.
A true-crime media circus in the early days of George H.W. Bush’s presidency, the killing of Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home by their sons took two trials and six years after the deaths for a jury to reach a verdict. Though always been discussed somewhere on cable, the Menendez brothers’ case returned center stage thanks in part to the success of the Netflix and Ryan Murphy series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story series and some documentaries claiming new evidence.
Although Hochman made his doubts clear, the Menendez brothers now insist that the shooting of their parents was self-defense against alleged ongoing sexual abuse by their record company executive father.
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