The Menendez brothers' case took a bizarre twist Thursday as the Los Angeles district attorney said he was recommending they be freed as soon as possible–then said some of his own lawyers might argue in court to keep them locked up.
George Gascón, the DA, announced at a press conference thay he will formally ask a judge on Friday to review the brothers’ decades-old case and overturn their sentences of life without parole—something he conceded his own office isn’t in agreement on.
“After a very careful review of all the arguments that were made for people on both sides of this equation,” Gascón said, “I came to a place where I believe, under the law, resentencing is appropriate.”
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He said he would recommend to the court that they be declared immediately eligible for parole.
That means the brothers, who’ve been locked up since 1996 after a jury convicted them of shooting their millionaire parents dead in their Beverly Hills home in 1989, may soon see their sentence effectively commuted.
Gascón said he’d like the men’s murder conviction to remain, but said their age at the time of the dual slaying—when they were both younger than 26—means that they would already be eligible for release.
Had they been older than that age, he said the minimum sentence for murder at the time would have still been 50 years behind bars.
“They will be eligible for parole immediately,” Gascón said of the brothers.
But, he said: “It is very possible that they may be members of this office that will be present in court opposing their resentencing. They have a right to do so and we encourage those that disagree with us to speak—and the court is the appropriate place to do it.”
The bizarre possibility of prosecutors arguing against their own boss comes after years of questions over whether Lyle, 56, and Erik, 53, who are currently serving life sentences without parole in a state prison outside San Diego should be freed.
But the case came to a head amid a Netflix dramatization from super-producer Ryan Murphy which propelled the case back into the spotlight, and political drama in Los Angeles.
Gascón, a Democrat who’s struggling with his bid for re-election and would be out of office in December should he lose, announced his recommendation 12 days before voters decide his fate. The recommendation is just that, however, and the ultimate decision on resentencing will lay with a Los Angeles County judge.
That judge, should he heed Gascón’s request, will be given the herculean task of weighing old evidence from the men’s highly-publicized trials with the new.
Gascón said that his prosecutors, even all these years later, remain split on if the Menendez brothers deserve to be resentenced.
“I have to tell you unequivocally that we don’t have a universal agreement,” he said. “There are people in the office that strongly believe that the Menendez brothers should stay in prison the rest of their life.”
The dividing detail, as Gascón explained it, was whether his prosecutors actually believe the brothers were molested by their father or not as they’d alleged.
Back in the ’90s, after a pair of mistrials that were covered incessantly by the national media, prosecutors successfully argued that 21-year-old Lyle and 18-year-old Erik had killed their parents to gain control of their family’s assets, which were valued at $14 million back then.
The brothers argued that they killed their parents in self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, Jose, which they alleged was known about but not acted upon by their mother, Kitty. Had they not gunned down their parents with shotguns, they argued, their father may have killed them himself to cover up the abuse.
That same defense has some new juice this time around. A letter that was reportedly penned by Erik—and sent to a cousin months before the murders—was recently uncovered by a journalist who has documented the Menendez brothers case over the years. Erik detailed in that letter how his father had sexually abused him.
Also helping the brothers’ cause is a 2023 documentary that revealed new sexual assault allegations against Jose—their music executive father—that were leveled by a member of the boy band Menudo.
All of this new evidence, and perhaps more that’s yet to be revealed, would be considered as part of resentencing. A judge will also be tasked with reviewing extenuating circumstances like trauma and abuse, as well as the brothers’ behavior in prison.
The brothers have been model inmates behind bars, their lawyers and prison authorities have both said. They’ve worked as hospice aides to help sick inmates in prison; ran Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and meditation groups for inmates; and have completed college courses. That list just might help their cause when it comes time for resentencing.
A legal team for the brothers has said they should have been tried for manslaughter, not murder, and—at 28 years and counting—have already served enough time for a crime of that nature.
If the brothers appear at the hearing in November in person it will be the first time they have been outside prison in decades.
