Gov. Gavin Newsom will put off making a decision on the Menendez brothers’ bid for clemency until incoming Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman reviews the nearly 35-year-old case, the Governor’s Office said Tuesday.
“The governor respects the role of the district attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” the statement reads. “The governor will defer to the DA-elect’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
Last month, current District Attorney George Gascón requested that a judge re-sentence the brothers, who are serving life without parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion to 50 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Given the brothers’ ages at the time of the crime, such a ruling would make them potentially immediately eligible for parole as youthful offenders, even though they have only served about 35 years behind bars.
Gascón was handily defeated in his re-election bid by Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who campaigned on a tougher stance against crime. Hochman is set to take office in December.
The Menendez brothers’ defense team has submitted papers to Newsom requesting clemency, and Gascón said he would support that request.
“I strongly support clemency for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are currently serving sentences of life without possibility of parole,” Gascón said in a statement. “They have respectively served 34 years and have continued their educations and worked to create new programs to support the rehabilitation of fellow inmates.”
During their two highly publicized trials, the brothers did not dispute that they killed their parents but claimed self-defense, citing decades of alleged physical and sexual abuse by their father.
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In court papers filed last year, attorneys for the brothers pointed to two new pieces of evidence they contend corroborate the brothers’ allegations of long-term sexual abuse at the hands of their father — a letter written by Erik Menendez to one of his cousins in early 1989, eight months before the August 1989 killings, and recent allegations by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, that he was sexually abused by Jose Menendez as a teenager.
Interest in the case again surged following the recent release of documentary and dramatic series from Netflix.
Court hearings are scheduled in Van Nuys for Nov. 25 and Dec. 11 to consider various proposals that could potentially lead to the brothers’ release.
During a recent interview, Newsom explained his reasons for delaying a clemency decision.
“The Menendez file is now a little thicker because we did deeper research in the last 10 days,” the governor said. “That’s all on my desk, but let me just say a couple things. You do have a new district attorney — the current DA was not re-elected and he was the one who recommended the re-sentencing of the Menendez brothers.”
He continued, “I think it’s the right thing to do, to hear from the new DA before I make any decisions. I’ll be deferring to his review, analysis and recommendation. That’s something I have (until now) not said publicly, but I think it is important under the circumstance, out of respect, not just for the new DA but those that elected him, rather overwhelmingly in Los Angeles.”