Los Angeles County District Legal professional Nathan Hochman mentioned Monday he is asking the court docket to withdraw the earlier district lawyer’s movement for resentencing for the Menendez brothers, calling the brothers’ claims of self-defense “lies.”
“We’re ready to go ahead” with the listening to relating to their resentencing case, Hochman mentioned at a information convention Monday. “Nevertheless, we’re asking the court docket to withdraw the earlier district lawyer’s movement for resentencing, as a result of we imagine there are reputable causes and the pursuits of justice justifies that withdrawal.”
The resentencing listening to is about for March 20 and 21.
Los Angeles County District Legal professional Nathan Hochman talks in regards to the resentencing of Erik and Lyle Menendez for the murders of their mother and father throughout a information convention in downtown Los Angeles, Jan. 3, 2025.
Damian Dovarganes/AP, FILE
The request to withdraw the resentencing movement is “based mostly on the present state of the document and the Menendez brothers’ present and continuous failure to point out full perception and settle for full duty for his or her murders,” Hochman mentioned in an announcement. “In the event that they have been to lastly come ahead and unequivocally and sincerely admit and utterly settle for duty for his or her lies of self-defense and the tried suborning of perjury they engaged in, then the Court docket ought to weigh such new perception into the evaluation of rehabilitation and resentencing — as will the Folks.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez are serving life with out the potential of parole.
In October, then-LA County District Legal professional George Gascón introduced he supported resentencing for the brothers. Gascón advisable their sentences of life with out the potential of parole be eliminated, and mentioned they need to as a substitute be sentenced for homicide, which might be a sentence of fifty years to life. As a result of each brothers have been beneath 26 on the time of the crimes, they’d be eligible for parole instantly with the brand new sentence.
The DA’s workplace mentioned its resentencing suggestions take note of many components, together with rehabilitation in jail and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and assist different inmates.
In these reserving pictures taken Oct. 10, 2024, Erik and Lyle Menendez are proven.
CRDC
Weeks after Gascón’s announcement, he misplaced his race for reelection to Hochman.
When Hochman got here into workplace on Dec. 3, he promised to evaluation all of the details earlier than reaching his personal determination. He mentioned that effort included talking to all of the prosecutors and protection attorneys concerned in addition to reviewing hundreds of pages of court docket filings, trial transcripts and confidential jail information.
Hochman’s announcement on Monday comes days after one of many brothers’ cousins, Tamara Goodell, slammed the DA in a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Civil Rights Division.
Goodell accused Hochman of being “hostile, dismissive and patronizing” throughout two conferences in January with relations who need the brothers launched. She mentioned the “lack of compassion was palpable, and the household left feeling not solely ignored however additional intimidated and revictimized.”
Joan Andersen VanderMolen, heart, speaks to the media surrounded by relations of Erik and Lyle Menendez, and lawyer Mark Geragos, far left, and lawyer Bryan Freedman, far proper, throughout a information convention after a listening to in Los Angeles, Nov. 25, 2024.
Damian Dovarganes/AP, FILE
Goodell needs Hochman eliminated and the case turned over to the lawyer common’s workplace.
This case dates again to 1989, when Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, shot and killed their mother and father, Kitty and Jose Menendez, within the household’s Beverly Hills residence.
The protection claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father. Prosecutors alleged they killed for cash.
Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle (R) pay attention throughout a pre-trial listening to, Dec. 29, 1992, in Los Angeles after the 2 pleaded harmless within the August 1989 shotgun deaths of their mother and father, Jose and Mary Louise Menendez.
Vince Bucci/AFP through Getty Photos
Their first trial resulted in a mistrial. Lyle and Erik Menendez have been convicted in 1996 following their second trial.
The brothers have been sentenced to 2 consecutive life jail phrases with out the potential of parole.
Erik Menendez along with his lawyer Leslie Abramson and his brother Lyle Menendez in Los Angeles, March 9, 1994.
Ted Soqui/Sygma through Getty Photos, FILE
Moreover resentencing, the brothers have been pursuing two different paths to freedom.
One is their habeas corpus petition, which they filed in 2023 for a evaluation of two new items of proof not offered at trial: a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin eight months earlier than the murders detailing his alleged abuse from his father, and allegations from a former boy band member who revealed in 2023 that he was raped by Jose Menendez.
Hochman introduced in February that he is asked the court to deny the habeas corpus petition, arguing the brand new proof is not credible or admissible.
Erik Menendez, left, and is brother Lyle, in entrance of their Beverly Hills residence on Nov. 30, 1989.
Los Angeles Instances through Getty Photos, FILE
The third path to freedom is thru the brothers’ request for clemency, which has been submitted to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
On Feb. 26, Newsom introduced that he is ordering the parole board to conduct a 90-day “complete threat evaluation” investigation into whether or not the brothers pose “an unreasonable threat to the general public” in the event that they’re granted clemency and launched.
“There isn’t any assure of final result right here,” Newsom mentioned. “However this course of merely gives extra transparency … in addition to gives us extra due diligence earlier than I make any dedication for clemency.”
It is a creating story. Please test again for updates.
