Erik and Lylie Menendez are going to have to wait until the early spring to find out if they may get out of jail decades earlier than expected.
A much anticipated resentencing hearing for 1996 life without parole sentenced siblings has been pushed back again, this time due to the horrific wildfires that have left large portions of LA County in ashes.
First set for December 11, the potentially pivotal session was shifted to January 30, with an extra day of January 31 if needed, back on November 25 by Judge Michael Jesic to provide then just elected new District Attorney Nathan Hochman more time to get his bearings with the decades old case. Now, with the region reeling from the fires that have destroyed tens of thousands of acres in Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Pasadena and elsewhere, nearly 30 people dead, 1000s of homes destroyed and looting and other crimes, Hochman’s office said today that Judge Jesic has “continued” the Menendez hearing once more.
“The new date is March 20-21,” the D.A. said in a short release put out this afternoon on the first full day in over a week when the Santa Ana winds have lessened and first responders have all the fire under varying degrees of control. “The continuance is due to the impact of recent wildfires on the parties’ extensive preparations for the hearings.”
As he should, the D.A. has made preventing and stamping out crime those who would take advantage of the empty homes and business from the still neatly 200.000 evacuated Angelenos and the literally open landscapes of heavily hit neighborhoods, his top priority as parts of the county still burn. Also, as Hochman said at a press conference on the Menendez brothers last month after meeting members of the family who want their relatives free: “We are going to spend the time necessary to get this decision right.”
Time that is undoubtedly hard to find as your town has turned into a Hellscape.
The influence of a 2023 Peacock docuseries on the Menendez case, plus Ryan Murphy and Netflix’s hit Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, has been an undeniable factor in getting this mater back in the headlines and suddenly capturing the attention of former D.A. George Gascón in the middle of his ultimately unsuccessful reelection bid against Hochman. A unique media sensation at the time of their first trials in the early 1990s, the twentysomething Menendez brothers were ultimately convicted for the brutal 1989 shotgun murder of their parents.
Convicted of first-degree murder, the brothers have always claimed their music industry executive father repeatedly sexually abused them in the family’s Beverly Hills home,. The now late middle-aged siblings have also said that their mother knew of the abuse, and did nothing to protect them — as made clear in a letter to a cousin sent weeks before the killings occurred. To that, they insisted the shotgun shootings were self-defense. Even with that, the Menendezs’ sentences were reaffirmed by two appeals courts over the years.
A successful resentencing, as advocated by the ex-D.A., could shift the brothers’ penalty to manslaughter instead of first-degree murder, and they could walk out of prison soon if a parole board agrees. Then again, if both Hochman and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has a clemency request for the Menendezs before him, sat on their hands on the matter, a judge could also order a brand new trial for the Menendez brothers.
The powerful Santa Ana winds that caused the fires to spread so wide, fast and deadly are gone for the weekend, but are expected to crank up again early next week — potentially putting the region in great danger again.
Nether the LA DA nor attorneys for the Menendez brothers and their family responded to request from Deadline to comment on the hearing being moved again. If either party get back to us, we will update this post.
