Lyle and Erik Menendez, who have spent more than 30 years behind bars for the 1989 murder of their parents, have received support from Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón in their bid for clemency.
Attorneys for the brothers submitted a request for clemency, which could result in their immediate release, to California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Oct. 28. Gascón has sent letters of support to the governor after announcing last week he is recommending their resentencing.
“I strongly support clemency for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are currently serving sentences of life without possibility of parole. They have respectively served 34 years and have continued their educations and worked to create new programs to support the rehabilitation of fellow inmates,” Gascón said in a statement Wednesday.
In a statement provided to CBS News Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Newsom’s office said that “pending clemency applications are confidential and we’re not able to discuss individual cases.”
A court hearing for their resentencing has been scheduled for Dec. 11 at the Van Nuys West Courthouse.
The case that drew national headlines as it first unfolded in the early 1990s has gained renewed attention in recent weeks, some calling for the Menendezes’ release, including several of their family members. Meanwhile, at least one of their relatives strongly opposes the possibility, filing an amicus brief in a bid to block it.
The two brothers were convicted of fatally shooting their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, as the couple sat on a couch inside their Beverly Hills home on the evening of Aug. 20, 1989. Prosecutors argued greed was the motivation behind the killings, while Lyle and Erik said they killed them in self-defense, saying they feared for their lives and had endured years of sexual abuse through their childhoods.
After Gascón announced last week he was recommending resentencing, the Beverly Hills Police Department released a statement saying the DA’s office did not reach out to them before the decision was announced. The police force investigated the case back in the fall of 1989, leading to the brothers’ arrest months later, and their first-degree murder convictions after a second trial.
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“As the investigating agency for the case, the BHPD presented relevant facts and evidence to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, which resulted in the filing of criminal charges at that time,” the law enforcement agency said in the statement.
Last year, the brothers’ attorneys filed a habeas petition calling for a review of potential new evidence in the case, including a letter Erik allegedly wrote to a cousin apparently referencing allegations of abuse by his father as well as a sworn declaration by a former member of boy band Menudo, Roy Rosselló, alleging Jose Menendez raped him in the 1980s.
Some have called for the brothers’ release in light of the allegations they have made against their father, reflecting cultural and generational shifts in conversations around abuse.
“The world was not ready to believe that boys could be raped or that young men could be victims of sexual violence,” their aunt and sister of their mother Kitty, Joan VanderMolen, told reporters as she pleaded for their release earlier this month. “Today we know better. We know that abuse has long-lasting effects and victims of trauma sometimes act in ways that are very difficult to understand.”
Meanwhile, their uncle, Milton Andersen, brother of Kitty, has strongly opposed allowing them to be freed from prison. His attorney, Kathy Cady, released a statement on his behalf following the DA’s resentencing decision, saying Erik and Lyle “meticulously planned and executed the cold-blooded murders of both their parents.”