Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has recommended Erik and Lyle Menendez be resentenced over the decades-old murder of their parents and be eligible for parole immediately.
“Resentencing is appropriate,” he said and will make the recommendation to a judge.
Gascon says there was not total agreement within his office about what should happen, but that his decision was made after a “very careful review.”
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A judge will ultimately decide on the brothers’ case, and a hearing on the matter has been scheduled for November 26.
The hearing stems from a defence petition citing what the Menendez brothers’ lawyers argue is new evidence, as well as a recent California law on resentencing in which the court can take into consideration sentences in comparable cases.
The judge can also consider whether the defendants were victims of psychological or physical abuse, whether they are rehabilitated and whether they are a danger to society.
The reexamination of the case comes more than 35 years after the fatal shooting of Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home. Their sons, Lyle and Erik, who were 21 and 18 at the time, were arrested less than a year later, in 1990, and accused of first-degree murder.
At their high-profile trials decades ago – one of the first cases to be televised – the brothers did not deny killing their parents, but argued they should not be convicted because they acted in self-defence after enduring a lifetime of abuse by their father.
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A first trial ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked on the charges. In their second trial, much of the defense evidence about sexual abuse was excluded. The brothers were found guilty in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison.
Last year, lawyers for the Menendez brothers filed a habeas corpus petition asking the court to reconsider the conviction and sentence in light of new evidence, including a sworn statement by former Menudo boy band member Roy Rosselló, who alleged Jose Menendez sexually assaulted him in the 1980s.
The lawyers also said a letter Erik Menendez wrote to a cousin months before the killings alludes to the abuse he endured.
The defence is asking the court to either vacate the brothers’ conviction and sentence, or permit discovery and an evidentiary hearing during which they can provide proof, the petition says.
The brothers’ story has taken on new interest following the September release of the Netflix series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. Netflix also released a documentary on the Menendez case this month featuring both men discussing what led to the killings.
Gascón, who is campaigning for reelection on a platform that includes sentencing reform, told CNN this month times have changed regarding how the public and the courts treat victims of sexual abuse.
“There is no question that a jury today would look at this case probably very differently than a jury did 35 years ago,” he said.
Last week, the brothers’ relatives made impassioned pleas for their release.
Joan Vander Molen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, said the actions of the brothers were “the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable cruelty of their father.”
“They were just children. Children who could have been protected and were instead brutalized in the most horrific ways,” she said.
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