LOS ANGELES (NewsNation) — Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman is urging a judge not to grant a petition to review new evidence in the Lyle and Erik Menendez case, stating the timing of the petition did not meet legal requirements.
Lyle and Erik Menendez were found guilty of murdering Jose and Kitty Menendez in 1989 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
On Friday, Hochman told reporters the evidence featured in the brothers’ habeas corpus petition had been made public for years prior. Their lawyers filed the petition in May of 2023, asking a judge to consider evidence suggesting they were sexually abused by their father.
One piece of evidence — a letter from Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano in 1988 — claimed the brothers’ father, Jose Menendez, was sexually abusing them. Hochman said the letter was featured in a 2015 news report and questioned why the petition came eight years later.
Hochman met with the brothers’ family in January while he reviewed their bid for freedom. Hochman, who took office in December, said he had a “productive session” with the family members, who shared their thoughts on whether the brothers should be released.
“What I said to the family is I would listen to them, and I did,” he said Friday, noting that they spoke at length about the brothers’ rehabilitation, which he said would not apply to the habeas corpus petition.
In addition to the petition, Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascón, asked a judge last year to resentence the brothers to 50 years in prison, which would make them immediately eligible for parole.
At the time, Hochman, who was running against Gascón, called it a “desperate political move.”
A hearing about the resentencing was scheduled for January but postponed until March due to the wildfires in the Los Angeles region.
The brothers have the support of most of their extended family, who have said they deserve to be free after decades behind bars. Several family members have said that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
At the brothers’ original trials, their defense attorneys argued that they had been sexually abused by their father. Prosecutors denied that and accused them of killing their parents for money. In the years that followed, they repeatedly appealed their convictions without success.
The brothers are being held at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
