New DA Makes Announcement On Menendez Brothers’ Resentencing

LOS ANGELES, CA — Despite an hours-long meeting with family members of Erik and Lyle Menendez on Friday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman still has not made a decision whether he'll put his weight behind a multipronged effort to get the brothers out of prison.

Hochman met with the brothers' family members in advance of a court hearing at the end of the month when a judge will reconsider the brothers' sentences for killing their parents, Jose and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.

Resentencing — based on new evidence that purportedly supports the pair's long-held stance that they were sexually abused by their father before the murders — could mean the brothers get out of prison in the near future.

For his part, Hochman said he still hasn't determined his stance on the question.

"It's taking a lot of time, but it's one of those decisions you want to make sure you get right," Hochman said at a news conference after Friday's meeting.

Friday's news conference marks the first update Hochman has spoken publicly regarding his work on the case since he took office Dec. 3.

His predecessor, George Gascón, in October requested that the judge resentence the brothers, who have spent 35 years behind bars. He recommended to the court the brothers' original sentence — life without parole — be removed and that they be sentenced to 50 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Because of their age at the time of the crimes, the brothers would immediately be eligible for youthful parole, which would be decided by a parole board, Gascón said.

While the resentencing decision is ultimately up to the judge, a favorable recommendation from the district attorney could carry a lot of weight.

Hochman made it clear he wouldn't simply pick up where Gascón left off on the Menendez case. On Friday, he said he was still in the midst of an intensive effort to review thousands of pages of trial transcripts, exhibits, information from failed appeal bids and information about the brothers' behavior in prison.

The conversation he had with the brothers' family members on Friday represented one more "part of the information data set" that will determine his stance on the question of resentencing.

"What I'm doing is processing all this information," Hochman said. "We're inputting that additional information that I received today — which was useful information — into the entire decision matrix on what to do with this case."

He declined to detail the conversation, but called it "productive." The family members he met with Friday canceled their own news conference scheduled for after the meeting.

Among Hochman's biggest areas of focus are whether the brothers have been adequately rehabilitated in prison, something his predecessor believed.

Gascón cited the brothers' leadership in prison as one of the reasons they deserve a shot at parole. Despite having no hope of ever getting out of prison, they spent their time behind bars working to make other people's lives better, he said. Notably, they created groups to help inmates deal with untreated trauma and advocated for inmates with physical disabilities, Gascón said.

A hearing scheduled for December on the question of resentencing was postponed to Jan. 30 after a judge said he won't rule on whether the brothers should be resentenced until 2025, in part, to allow for Hochman to review the case.

The resentencing bid is just one effort by the Menendez team for a reconsideration of the case.

The brothers' lawyers petitioned Gov. Gavin Newsom to consider clemency; Newsom said he'll defer to Hochman on that question.

The governor has broad power to grant clemency under the state Constitution, including commutations of sentence and pardons.

The efforts to revisit the brothers' conviction and sentencing is supported by a change in how society views boys as victims of sexual abuse and renewed advocacy around the case fueled by social media content creators and a new documentary, according to the Menendez family.

The evidence submitted to the courts as part of the resentencing bid includes a letter written by Erik Menendez to his cousin eight months before the killing that refenced the abuse. Recent allegations by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo, that he was also sexually abused by Jose Menendez as a teenager, was also submitted, their attorney said.

The Menendez brothers were tried twice after the first trial ended in a hung jury. During the second trial, prosecutors argued there was no evidence of sexual abuse, and details of the brothers' claims were not permitted in the second trial, ending in their conviction. Prosecutors at the time argued that the Erik and Lyle Menendez sought to profit from their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.

The brothers — now 56 and 53 — never denied carrying out the killings, but maintained they feared for their lives amid their father's abuse.

City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report.