A Los Angeles judge will finally decide the fate of Lyle and Erik Menendez next week — assuming nothing changes in the long, chaotic battle over the freedom for the killer duo.
The court will hear arguments for and against resentencing the brothers next Tuesday and Wednesday, potentially granting them parole more than 30 years after they used shotguns to execute their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion.
Judge Michael V. Jesic was meant to make his ruling last month, but he held off on his ruling after the brothers’ lawyer asked for the LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman to be booted from the case.
Hochman was carrying on a “dog and pony show” out of a nasty, personal vendetta against the pair, the lawyer, Mark Geragos, claimed.
Geragos withdrew that motion on Friday, clearing the way for the brothers to be resentenced.
The hearing — if it actually happens — will come a month before Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to make his own decision on whether or not the brothers deserve a pardon.Once again, family members from around the country will travel to Los Angeles to testify on Lyle and Erik’s behalf, backing their claim that they feared for their lives when they killed their parents after years of sexual abuse at the hands of their father, Jose Menendez, with the help of his wife Kitty.
Lyle and Erik were only 21 and 18, respectively, when they purchased shotguns and killed Jose and Kitty, execution style, in their own living room in 1989.
Read more on the Menendez brothers’ case
They were found guilty of first-degree murder after two high-profile trials in the 90s.
A Netflix documentary about the case brought them back into the spotlight last year, and former District Attorney George Gascón filed a formal motion to resentence them.
At one point, it seemed as if the brothers might have been freed before Christmas, but when Hochman unseated Gascón in November, he tried to dismantle his predecessor’s resentencing effort.
Hochman’s office tried to formally withdraw the resentencing motion, calling it an “insane” political ploy that ignored basic facts.
At a hearing to withdraw that motion last month, a deputy district attorney showed grizzly crime scene photos of the corpse of Jose Menendez — and the shock of seeing them sent Lyle and Erik’s elderly aunt to the hospital in critical condition, family members said.
If the judge denies Lyle and Erik parole next week — or if the hearing is once again put off — the pair could still win their freedom in the form of clemency from Newsom, whose state parole board is conducting its own, independent review of whether or not they have been rehabilitated.
Their final parole board hearing is scheduled for June 13.
