The Menendez brothers will get their day in court—again.
On Friday, a judge scheduled a resentencing hearing for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who in 1996 were convicted of the murder of their parents, Kitty and José Menendez.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge Michael Jesic set the hearing to begin next Tuesday, May 13, according to The New York Times. It is expected to last for two days.
The brothers will have the opportunity to present their case for release. While they don’t dispute the fact that they killed their parents on August 20, 1989, they claim it was in self-defense, as their father’s alleged sexual abuse left them with no other choice.
They believe they should have faced lesser charges than the first-degree murders for which they were convicted in 1996. If the court agrees, the brothers could be allowed to walk free.
The ruling is a major victory for Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57. It caps off a lengthy legal saga that has seen their resentencing hearing repeatedly postponed.
Lawyers for the brothers have been pushing for a reassessment of their case since as early as May 2023, citing new evidence that they say supports the brothers’ claims that their father was sexually abusing Erik.
Their bid for freedom picked up significant momentum after the September 2024 release of Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. The Netflix series was a massive hit, bringing renewed attention to the brothers’ case—which had enthralled the nation during their two highly publicized trials in the ’90s. When their first trial, which lasted from 1993 to 1994, ended in a mistrial, they were retried in 1995.
Former Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón emerged as a strong proponent of the brothers’ legal battle. Last fall, he asked the court to resentence the brothers to 50 years to life, which would have made them immediately eligible for parole.
In November, however, Gascón lost his reelection bid and was replaced as DA by Nathan Hochman—who ran on a tough-on-crime platform and has offered a much less sympathetic take on the brothers.
He contends that Erik and Lyle have failed to “come clean” about the “lies” they used to make their case—chiefly, that they acted in self-defense. The brothers maintain that because they feared physical harm from their father, they were acting in self-defense by killing both their parents.
Hochman has tried to pull Gascón’s petition but was previously denied by Jesic. The judge reaffirmed that decision on Friday, after Hochman made another attempt at yanking the petition.
The DA cited a new report, commissioned by California Governor Gavin Newsom, on the brothers’ behavior in prison, which found, among other things, that they had violated regulations by using cellphones. However, Jesic decided that the report didn’t contain much new information, and scheduled the hearing.
Despite the win, tensions between Hochman and the brothers’ legal team continued to flare on Friday, as one of their lawyers, Mark Geragos, declared the district attorney a “loser” while speaking outside of the courthouse, TMZ reported.
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