Prosecutor in Menendez Brothers Case to Ask Court for Resentencing

The request from George Gascón, the Los Angeles County district attorney, could lead to Lyle and Erik Menendez being released from prison, decades after they were convicted of murdering their parents.

The Los Angeles County district attorney said on Thursday that he would request the resentencing of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in 1989, a step that could lead to their release from prison.

The district attorney, George Gascón, announced his decision at a news conference at the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles.

“I believe that they have paid their debt to society,” he said.

Mr. Gascón, who was surrounded by members of his office and members of the Menendez family, said he would ask the court on Friday to resentence the brothers to a murder charge that comes with the possibility of parole.

It is not clear when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge will decide on the resentencing request. If a judge agrees with Mr. Gascón, the brothers would have to appear before a parole board. But the reviews by the court and the parole board could take many more weeks, and the brothers’ release is far from guaranteed.

The district attorney noted that there was disagreement in his office about whether to move forward with the resentencing. He cited a recent documentary that he said “brought a tremendous amount of public attention” and requests for information.

During their first trial in the early 1990s, which was televised, the brothers said they had been sexually molested by their father and feared for their lives. At the time, their claims were met with widespread skepticism. But Mr. Gascón said that he was ultimately convinced by the prosecutors in his office reviewing the case to ask the court for reconsideration, and that he believed the molestation claims.

The brothers are currently serving sentences of life without parole in a state prison near San Diego.

Mr. Gascón said that he would ask for them to be sentenced to 50 years to life with the possibility of parole. That term would still be longer than what the brothers have already served, but they would be eligible for parole immediately under state law because they committed the crimes when they were younger than 26.

“Today is a day filled with hope for our family,” Anamaria Baralt, a niece of Jose Menendez, said at the news conference. “We stand united in our hope and gratitude. Together we can make sure that Erik and Lyle can receive the justice they deserve and finally come home.”

The case drew renewed attention this year after Netflix released a docudrama about it, and later a documentary in which the brothers discussed the case at length in prison interviews.

The rare request for resentencing comes at an urgent political moment for Mr. Gascón, a Democrat who is struggling to win re-election against a conservative challenger running as an independent in the left-leaning county. Mr. Gascón on Thursday deflected questions about whether his decision was politically driven, saying, “I am not going to talk about re-election.”

His opponent, Nathan Hochman, said in a statement on Thursday that Mr. Gascón “has cast a cloud over the fairness and impartiality of his decision” by issuing it days before the Nov. 5 election.

Laurie L. Levenson, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who frequently analyzed the Menendez case for media outlets in the 1990s, said that Mr. Gascón “took the safest route: Leave it to the parole commission.”

The murders grabbed the nation’s attention in 1989 for their lurid nature and the wealthy milieu in which they were committed. The brothers’ initial trial in the early 1990s was one of the first to be televised to a national audience, a forerunner of the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, also in Los Angeles County.

The Menendez brothers had separate juries in their first trial, and a judge declared a mistrial after both juries had failed to reach unanimous verdicts, following weeks of deliberations. When the brothers were tried again — this time without TV cameras present — they were both convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Erik Menendez was 18 and his brother, Lyle, was 21 at the time of the murders.

At trial, prosecutors portrayed the brothers as unrepentant killers who murdered their parents with shotguns to get their hands on the family’s assets, valued at the time at $14 million (about $32 million in today’s dollars). A spending spree by the brothers in the months between the murders and their arrest, in which they bought a Porsche car, a Rolex watch and a restaurant in Princeton, N.J., was presented as evidence to support that theory.

The brothers’ defense team argued that they had been sexually abused by their father, Jose Menendez, and that their mother, Kitty Menendez, knew about it. The lawyers said the brothers killed their parents because they feared for their lives. The brothers had confronted their parents about the abuse, the lawyers said, and were worried that their parents would kill them to prevent the family’s secrets from becoming public.

“It’s important to recognize that both men and women can be victims of sexual abuse,” Mr. Gascón said this month, when he announced that his office was reviewing the case.

Mark Geragos, a lawyer for the brothers, said at that time: “If they were the Menendez sisters, they would not be in custody. We have evolved. It is time.” He did not immediately offer comment in court on Thursday.

During the first trial, which ended in a mistrial in 1994, evidence was admitted supporting the brothers’ contention that they had been abused. But in the second trial, the judge excluded much of that evidence — which was dismissed at the time by some legal experts as the brothers’ “abuse excuse” — and the brothers were convicted.

“If Lyle and Erik’s case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different,” Anamaria Baralt, a cousin of the brothers, said at a recent news conference held by the family.

New evidence has come to light in recent years. A letter written by Erik Menendez months before the murders, in which he described the sexual abuse to a cousin, was brought forward by Robert Rand, a journalist who has covered the case for years and has written a book about it. In addition, a 2023 documentary series on the Peacock streaming service reported allegations that Jose, a wealthy music executive, had sexually abused Roy Rosselló, a member of the boy band Menudo.

The brothers, their legal team and their extended family believe that if the evidence and testimony about the abuse been admitted at the second trial, it would have been seen as a mitigating factor, and the brothers would have been found guilty of manslaughter rather than first-degree murder.

Nery Ynclan, one of the journalists whose reporting powered the Peacock series, “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” said that lawyers for years cautioned against becoming too hopeful about the brothers ever being freed.

“Today is a victory for Lyle, Erik and Roy,” she said, “three men who found a way to process the pain of their horrendous childhoods by helping others deal with their traumas.”

The Menendez brothers have attracted enormous support on social media, where young people who were not alive at the time of the murders have demanded their release.

Many relatives of the brothers have rallied to their side, but the family is not united. Milton Andersen, Kitty’s brother, has retained a lawyer to oppose the brothers’ release.

Mr. Gascón “has repeatedly disregarded the rights of Milton Andersen, a 90-year-old man who has already endured the unimaginable loss of his sister, Kitty Menendez, in a brutal double homicide,” Kathy Cady, a lawyer representing Mr. Andersen, said in a statement on Thursday. “Despite numerous requests, Gascón has refused to inform Mr. Andersen of any decisions before holding press conferences. Mr. Andersen has been left in the dark.”

The district attorney’s resentencing petition includes several letters commending the brothers for their work in prison as hospice aides to sick inmates; for running Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and meditation groups for inmates; and for completing college courses. There are two letters in the packet from corrections officers, in favor of the resentencing and release of the brothers.

Victor H. Cortes, an official at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, where the brothers are incarcerated, wrote a letter in support of Lyle Menendez that is part of the petition for resentencing.

“It is exceedingly rare to encounter an individual who, despite facing a life sentence without the possibility of parole, has dedicated himself to personal growth, the betterment of his fellow inmates, and overall stability of the prison environment,” Mr. Cortes wrote.