Newsom orders parole board to assess public safety risk of freeing the Menendez brothers
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Gov. Gavin Newsom has directed the state parole board to launch a risk assessment investigation into whether Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are serving life sentences for the 1989 murders of their parents, would pose an unreasonable risk to public safety if they were released.
The move, announced Wednesday, is a step toward clemency for the brothers, who have been pursuing various paths to freedom bolstered by renewed public interest in the case and new evidence they say corroborates a history of sexual abuse by their father, Jose Menendez.
“Along with scores of Jose and Kitty Menendez’s family members who have fought for years to see Erik and Lyle have a chance to finally come home, we are grateful for the Governor’s decision,” the brothers’ defense attorneys, Mark Geragos and Cliff Gardner, said in a statement.
The attorneys had submitted a request for clemency to the governor late last year.
“I am hopeful they will be out in 2025,” Geragos told The Times on Wednesday.
A look at the lives the Menendez brothers built inside prison as they served life sentences without parole for the murders of their parents.
The governor’s office wrote in a letter to defense attorneys that Newsom’s “primary consideration when evaluating commutation applications is public safety, which includes the applicant’s current risk level, the impact of a commutation on victims and survivors, the applicant’s self-development and conduct since the offense, and if the applicant has made use of available rehabilitative programs, addressed treatment needs, and mitigated risk factors for reoffending.”
The board’s risk assessment will be available to the court and the Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman after the investigation is completed, according to the letter.
“There is no guarantee of outcome here,” Newsom said on his personal podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” on Wednesday. “My office conducts dozens and dozens of these clemency reviews on a consistent basis, but this process simply provides more transparency, which I think is important in this case.”
Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said Friday that he’ll revisit the issue of resentencing the brothers, who are serving life terms for killing their parents in 1989.
Fellow inmates, attorneys and rehabilitation workers have told The Times the brothers have become deeply involved in rehabilitation programs, including launching their own projects to promote rehabilitation of inmates in California prisons.
Besides clemency, Erik and Lyle Menendez are also pursuing two other legal avenues in their bid for freedom: a habeas corpus petition based on new evidence and resentencing.
A habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of the brothers in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2023 argued that new evidence — a 1988 letter sent from Erik Menendez to his cousin saying that he had been abused late into his teen years and allegations made by another man saying they had been raped by Jose Menendez — directly challenged the narrative prosecutors presented at trial and paved the way for their case to be reconsidered.
Hochman said last week he opposed granting the brothers a new trial, saying that the act of murder was the issue in the conviction, not the sexual abuse allegations. But he stopped short of shutting down the possibility of resentencing the brothers, saying he would revisit the issue in “the coming weeks.”
“Sexual abuse is abhorrent, and we will prosecute sexual abuse,” Hochman said last week. “While it may have been a motivation for Erik and Lyle to do what they did, it does not constitute self-defense.”
In 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez bought a pair of shotguns with cash, walked into their Beverly Hills home and shot their parents while they watched a movie in the family living room. Prosecutors said Jose Menendez was struck five times, including in the back of the head, and Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor wounded before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.
Police initially speculated that the killings were a mafia hit. The brothers were charged with murder after Erik, who was then 18 years old, confessed to the killings to his therapist in March 1990.
During the trial, prosecutors argued the brothers killed their parents for access to the couple’s multimillion-dollar estate. But defense attorneys countered that years of violent sexual abuse by their father preceded the shootings, justifying the killings as a form of self-defense.
Two prosecutors who recommended the Menendez brothers be resentenced allege they were demoted by new L.A. County D.A. Nathan Hochman and then defamed by one of his allies.
The first trial ended with hung juries for each brother. In the second, allegations of abuse and supporting testimonies were restricted, and Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of first-degree murder.
The two have pursued appeals for years without success. The nature of the killings and the highly publicized trials that followed have sparked documentaries, films and a recent television series that have renewed interest in the case and prompted pleas for the brothers to be freed.
Former Dist. Atty. George Gascón in October had asked a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to rescind the brothers’ prior sentence of life without the possibility of parole, instead sentencing them to 50 years to life, a move that could make them eligible for parole as youthful offenders because they committed the crime when they were younger than 26.
Gascón had also supported clemency for the brothers. But after Hochman defeated Gascón for the top prosecutor job he said he would review the Menendez case and make a recommendation.
Newsom said on a podcast last year that he wouldn’t make a clemency decision on the murder convictions until after Hochman’s review was completed.
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