Menendez brothers parole hearings start Thursday – NBC Los Angeles

Lyle and Erik Menendez will go earlier than a California parole board panel in two days of high-stakes hearings to decide whether or not the brothers proceed serving time in jail for the 1989 shotgun murders of their dad and mom on the household’s Beverly Hills mansion.

Erik Menendez’s parole suitability listening to is scheduled to start Thursday morning, 36 years and sooner or later after the murders, with a separate listening to scheduled for Lyle Menendez on Friday. On the finish of each hearings, members of the board will take into account whether or not the brothers presently pose an unreasonable danger of hazard to society if they’re launched from jail after three many years behind bars.

Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, Menendez have been initially sentenced to life in jail with out the potential for parole after the second of their two homicide trials. They grew to become eligible for parole below California’s youth offender parole legal guidelines after a courtroom resentenced them earlier this 12 months.

Resentencing was positioned on the desk late final 12 months by former Los Angeles County District Lawyer George Gascón, who mentioned he supported the transfer. Gascón was voted out of workplace in November, new District Lawyer Nathan Hochman made clear his workplace’s opposition to resentencing, however a choose in April denied prosecutors’ request to withdraw the resentencing movement filed months earlier.

That led to a pivotal choice in Could, when a choose resentenced Lyle and Erik Menendez to 50 years to life in jail, which brings the decades-old case that has captured the eye of a brand new technology of Individuals to this week’s parole hearings.

Convicts to social media stars? Erik and Lyle Menendez, who a choose dominated to now be eligible for parole following the killing of their dad and mom, have acquired assist on social media and protection by Web customers. Jonathan Gonzalez studies for the NBC4 Information at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Could 14, 2025.

The brothers will seem on a dwell video feed from jail. California parole hearings final, on common, two to a few hours and are sometimes conducts with two to a few listening to officers from a bigger Board of Parole Hearings pool of 21 full-time commissioners and 31 deputy commissioners.

In making their willpower, members of the parole board panel will take into account prison historical past, correction division data in regards to the brothers’ time in jail and statements from members of the family, prosecutors, the victims’ household and the brothers themselves. On the Could listening to on resentencing, each brothers made statements by way of video feed from jail.

“I fired all 5 rounds at my dad and mom and went again to reload. I lied to police. I lied to my household. I am actually sorry,” Erik Menendez mentioned.

Lyle Menendez additionally expressed remorse over his actions 36 years in the past on Aug. 20, 1989.

“I dedicated an atrocious act towards two individuals who had the best to dwell, my mother and pa,” he mentioned. “Right now, 35 years later, I’m deeply ashamed of who I used to be.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom mentioned what he’ll take into account if the Menendez brothers are advisable for parole.

After that listening to, Decide Michael Jesic mentioned he could not “make a discovering that they’re an unreasonable danger” and issued the choice that made them eligible for parole.

The parole listening to panel makes use of what’s referred to as a Structured Resolution-Making Framework to evaluate the dangers of releasing the brothers from jail. The evaluation software is constructed on a number of components, together with prison historical past, self-control on the time of the crime, institutional conduct, private change and different concerns.

At some level following the listening to, probably the identical day, the panel will grant or deny parole. If denied, the brothers’ legal professional can ask the total parole board to overview the case. If granted, the board’s chief counsel has up 120 days to overview the choice.

There’s additionally the potential for a tie if there are an excellent variety of parole panel members. A call would then go to the total parole board utilizing a transcript of audio from this week’s hearings.

If a grant is upheld by the chief counsel, the case would go to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who would have 30 days to overview the choice. The governor can affirm, reverse and modify the choice. He can also ship the case again to the board for overview in any case involving a homicide.

If the does nothing, the panel’s choice stands.

Newsom has not indicated what he may do, however he spoke in regards to the case and curiosity across the brothers on his podcast with “Monsters” creator Ryan Murphy. After premiering in September 2024, Murphy’s present renewed public consideration and push for the brothers’ resentencing.

The governor mentioned he by no means watched the present.

“I saved having a temptation to need to see it, however with the popularity at all times at the back of my thoughts that this factor could land on my desk,” Newsom informed Murphy. “I don’t need to be persuaded by one thing that’s not within the recordsdata.”

If parole is denied, the brothers nonetheless have two potential paths to freedom — a grant of clemency from Gov. Newsom and a movement for a brand new trial that’s nonetheless working by the authorized system.