Gov. Gavin Newsom is ordering the parole board to launch a risk assessment investigation into whether Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are serving life sentences for the 1989 murder of their parents, would pose a risk to public safety if they were released, defense attorney Mark Geragos said Wednesday.
The move is a step toward clemency for the brothers, who have asked a court to take another look at their case amid new sexual assault allegations they say corroborate a history of abuse by their father, Jose Menendez. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said during a news conference last week that he opposed the brothers being granted a new trial.
“I am hopeful they will be out in 2025,” Geragos told The Times on Wednesday.
The governor’s office wrote in a letter to Geragos that Newsom’s “primary consideration when evaluating commutation applications is public safety, which includes the applicant’s current risk level, the impact of a commutation on victims and survivors, the applicant’s self-development and conduct since the offense, and if the applicant has made use of available rehabilitative programs, addressed treatment needs, and mitigated risk factors for reoffending.”
The board’s risk assessment will be available to the court and Hochman after the investigation is completed, according to the letter.
Besides clemency, the brothers are also pursuing two other avenues of potential freedom: a habeas corpus petition based on new evidence and resentencing.
A habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of the brothers in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2023 argued that new evidence — a 1988 letter sent from Erik Menendez to his cousin saying that he had been abused late into his teen years and allegations made by another man saying they had been raped by Jose Menendez — directly challenged the narrative prosecutors presented at trial and paved the way for their case to be reconsidered.
Hochman said last week he opposed granting the brothers a new trial, saying that the act of murder was the issue in the conviction, not the sexual abuse allegations. But he stopped short of shutting down the possibility of resentencing the brothers, saying he would revisit the issue in “the coming weeks.”
“Sexual abuse is abhorrent, and we will prosecute sexual abuse,” Hochman said last week. “While it may have been a motivation for Erik and Lyle to do what they did, it does not constitute self-defense.”
Newsom has said he won’t make a clemency decision on the murder convictions until after Hochman finishes his review of the case.
The brothers’ three decades in prison could come under scrutiny as part of their appeal for freedom. Hochman has said previously that, before making a decision about resentencing, he needs to review not just the criminal case, but the Menendez brothers’ prison files and their time behind bars. He said he must also question whether the brothers have been rehabilitated.
Fellow inmates, attorneys and rehabilitation workers have told The Times the two have become deeply involved in rehabilitation programs, including launching their own projects to promote rehabilitation of inmates in California prisons.
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