Lyle and Erik Menendez have scored a major legal win.
On Thursday, October 24, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced he would formally ask the court to resentence the brothers’ decades-old murder convictions. Lyle and Erik have remained behind bars since 1990, about a year after they fatally shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Their first trial ended in a mistrial in early 1994 after jurors remained deadlocked on the charges. The two were found guilty of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
“We are going to recommend to the court [on Friday] that the life without the possibility of parole be removed and they would be sentenced for murder,” Gascón told reporters, per ABC News. “I believe that they have paid their debt to society.”
Gascón said he is seeking a 50-year-to-life sentence for Erik and Lyle, which, under California resentencing law, could make them eligible for parole due to their age at the time of the murders. (They were both under 26 when they killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home.)
The DA emphasized that his recommendation does not guarantee the brothers’ freedom, as the final decision will rest with an LA Superior Court judge.
The brothers have long claimed that the murders were an act of self-defense as they endured years of sexual abuse by their father. Although the allegations were barred from the 1996 trial, they were explored in the 2024 Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, which renewed interest in the decades-old case.
More than a year before the series premiere, the brothers’ legal team submitted a habeas corpus petition seeking reduced sentences. The petition cited new evidence related to the case, including a letter Erik purportedly sent to his cousin months before his parents’ murder. The defense included several excerpts from the letter, in which he alluded to abuse by his father.
“I’ve been trying to avoid dad. Its still happening Andy but its worse for me now,” the letter read in part, as reported by USA Today. “I never know when its going to happen and its driving me crazy. Every night I stay up thinking he might come in… I know what you said before but I’m afraid. You just don’t know dad like I do. He’s crazy! He’s warned me a hundred times about telling anyone.”
