California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday that Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were found guilty of murdering their parents in 1989, will have a hearing before the parole board on June 13.
The brothers have spent more than three decades behind bars after the double murder of their parents in their Beverly Hills home. There has been recent attention on their case thanks to multiple investigative documentaries, plus evidence that alleges the boys’ father, Jose Menendez, sexually abused his sons.
Newsom mentioned the hearing during a recent episode of his new podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom.”
“We will submit that report to the judge for the resentencing,” the California governor said, “and that will weigh into our independent analysis of whether or not to move forward with the clemency application to support a commutation of this case.”
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Monday that he opposed the move, unlike his predecessor George Gascón. Hochman said their self-defense claims are full of “lies.”
“The Menendez brothers have continued to lie for over 30 years about their self-defense — that is, their purported actual fear that their mother and their father were going to kill them the night of the murders,” Hochman wrote in a motion to rescind Gascón’s request for resentencing. “Also, over those 30 years, they have failed to accept responsibility for the vast number of lies they told in connection with that defense,” he added.
“Our position is that they shouldn’t get out of jail. Ultimately, that is a position, we bring that position to the court,” Hochman said.
Newsom requested in February that the parole board conduct an assessment on whether the Menendez brothers pose a threat to public safety.
“There is no guarantee of outcome here,” the governor said on his podcast in February, per Los Angeles Times. “My office conducts dozens and dozens of these clemency reviews on a consistent basis, but this [assessment] process simply provides more transparency, which I think is important in this case.”
Some of the Menendez brothers’ relatives have come out in favor of them being released from prison, while others say they should remain behind bars regardless of whether they’d been sexually abused.
