The Menendez brothers are one step closer to freedom after spending 34 years behind bars for shooting their parents dead in 1989.
A California prosecutor said he is requesting that a court resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez, now 53 and 56, meaning the pair could possibly be released on parole.
‘I came to a place where I believe, under the law, resentencing is appropriate,’ stated Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón on Thursday afternoon.
‘I believe they have paid their debt to society.’
The brothers will immediately be eligible for parole because they were under 26 years old when they committed the crimes, Gascón said.
Prosecutors will formally make the request in court on Friday.
The district attorney added that some officials in his office were against resentencing and could argue against it.
Erik and Lyle, then 18 and 21 years old respectively, admitted to fatally shooting their father and mother. The brothers said they acted in self-defense and fear that their parents would kill them to stop people from discovering that their entertainment executive dad, Jose Menendez, sexually abused Erik.
The brothers were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1996.
Their extended family members have called for their release, stressing that if the brothers were tried today with sexual abuse weighing in differently than decades ago, their conviction would not be the same.
Last week, two dozen of their family members and defense attorney Mark Geragos gave an emotional plea outside a Los Angeles courthouse to free the brothers.
‘Their actions, while tragic, were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable cruelty of their father,’ said Joan Andersen VanderMolen, the sister of the brothers’ mother, Kitty Menendez.
‘The truth is, Lyle and Erik were failed by the very people who should have protected them – their parents, the system, and society at large.’
Their case sparked worldwide interest, and was featured in the Netflix series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. The nine episodes released earlier this year renewed public interest in the matter, while also drawing some backlash.
Gascón said the brothers undoubtedly killed their parents, but that there is new evidence including a letter Erik apparently wrote to a cousin eight months before the killings in which he detailed the abuse.
He said the evidence could have produced a different outcome from the jury had it been shown at the time.
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