After unseating George Gascón as Los Angeles County’s new district attorney, Nathan Hochman is catching up on his predecessor’s infamous caseload.
Addressing Gascón’s recent recommendation that Erik and Lyle Menéndez be resentenced for the 1989 murders of their parents José and Mary Louise ‘Kitty’ Menéndez, Hochman insisted he’s “not gonna delay for delay’s sake” when the case potentially comes across his desk.
“On my end, I will work as fast as I can,” he told TMZ, noting his years of experience as both a district attorney and a defense attorney. “I will expeditiously be able to go through all this information. Certainly, it will have a high priority, as will other similarly situated cases, have a high priority on my desk.”
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Hochman — who noted that the decision will still have to run through the court, the parole board and Governor Gavin Newsom after he has his say — added, “One way or another, the Menendezes, like every defendant, deserve a decision.”
After slamming Gascón for the “suspicious” timing of his sudden interest in the case last month during their debate, Hochman takes office before a December 11 hearing on a potential resentencing of the brothers, that could see them move considerably closer to release from their 1996 imposed sentences
“If the D.A. Gascón truly believed they should be resentenced, he’d been sitting on the resentencing motion for eight months. He’d been sitting on the habeas motion for 16 months,” he told TMZ. “At any point, he could have gone ahead and done it, but it wouldn’t have helped him during the election because he made his decision 12 days before the election.”
Hochman added, “By making the decision right in the heart of a campaign, when he was 30 points down and had no money in the bank but needed the media attention, what he’s effectively done is cast a cloud over the credibility as to whether or not it truly is a just decision or if it was just for his political benefit. Again, if it does land on my desk, I will do the hard work to thoroughly research the facts and the law to make an appropriate decision.”
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