Topline
The district attorney of Los Angeles County will ask a judge to resentence Lyle and Erik Menendez on Friday—potentially opening the door for the two brothers to be free from prison after being convicted in the 1990s of killing their parents and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Key Facts
District Attorney George Gascón said Thursday in a press conference that “after very careful review of all the arguments made” he is going to recommend Friday that the brothers be resentenced.
He said the decision to ask for a resentencing was not unanimous in his office, but he will recommend they be resentenced to life with the possibility of parole, which could make them eligible for parole immediately because of the time they’ve already served.
Though Gascón recommended resentencing, the decision of whether Lyle and Erik, who were 21 and 18 at the time of the murders, will receive a lighter sentence ultimately lies with a judge.
Earlier this month—after the case was in a renewed spotlight because of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series, “Monsters”—Gascón said his office had been evaluating the Menendez case for about a year, noting prosecutors had a “moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented.”
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Crucial Quote
“We’re very sure not only that the brothers have been rehabilitated and that they will be safe to be reintegrated in our society, but that they have paid their dues,” Gascón said.
Key Background
The Menendez brothers were convicted for the murder of their parents, José and Kitty, who were shot six and 10 times, respectively, in their home in August of 1989. The brothers initially told police they hadn’t been home when the murders occurred, but Erik eventually confessed to his psychologist. The brothers did not deny killing their parents, but claimed they shot them out of fear for their lives after being sexually abused by their father. They also alleged their mother was an alcoholic and drug addict who enabled her husband to abuse the boys. The first trials—when each brother was tried separately—were major news events and had evidence of the brothers’ abuse, but both resulted in mistrials. In the second trial, when they were tried together, the judge did not allow much of the abuse evidence to be admitted and said the “abuse excuse” argument was not allowed, The New York Times reported, leading to the pair being convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
News Peg
The story of the Menendez brothers catapulted back into the mainstream because of Murphy’s Netflix series, “Monsters.” The show “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” focused on their relationship, and was the most-watched series on Netflix for two weeks in a row before falling to second, third and fourth places in the subsequent weeks, for a total of 506.5 million viewing hours from Sept. 23 to Oct. 20. The series drew controversy in large part because it depicted the brothers as having an incestuous relationship—despite both of them denying they had a sexual relationship. In response to criticism of the decision to portray the relationship, Murphy said “there are people who say that never happened, there were people who said it did happen.”
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