On the potential cusp of freedom after decades behind bars for the brutal 1989 shotgun murder of their parents, Erik Menendez & Lyle Menendez will have to wait a bit longer it seems to know what their fates are going to be.
In a rebuke to LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, the Menendez brothers were resentenced on May 13 to 50 years to life, which makes them now eligible for parole. At the much delayed hearing, LA Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic deemed Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, did not pose “an unreasonable risk” if they were let out almost 30 years after their 1996 life without parole sentencing.
To that end, the siblings’ previously scheduled June 13 clemency board hearings that were ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this year shifted. “Since the ruling makes them immediately eligible for parole consideration as youth offenders, it is the Board’s intent to convert the June 13, 2025, clemency hearings to initial parole suitability hearings,” Scott Wyckoff of the state Board of Parole Hearings stated last week as the governor withdrew the probes into potential clemency in lieu of Judge Jesic’s ruling.
Well, June 13 is going to come and go and there won’t be any hearings for the Menendezs. Now, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says will occur on August 21 and 22.
A decision that Lyle Menendez addressed online late Monday
The CDCR did not respond to request for comment from Deadline on the postponement. A representative for Menendez lawyers Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos had no comment on the latest turn of events.
Erik and Lyle Menendez are currently both being held at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego. Even with the change in their sentencing status and those hearings kicked down the line, the siblings’ clemency application remains open in the Governor’s office, though it is pretty much moot at this point.
A true crime media circus back in the early days of George H.W. Bush’s presidency, the killing of Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home by their sons took two trials for a jury to reach a verdict six years after the murders. Though always been discussed somewhere on cable, the Menendez brothers’ case came back to center stage due to the success of the Netflix and Ryan Murphy series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story series and some documentaries claiming new evidence. Though DA Hochman made his doubts clear, the Menendez brothers now insist that their 18- and 21-year-old selves shooting of their parents was self-defense against the alleged ongoing sexual abuse by their record company executive father.
