Erik and Lyle Menéndez are expected to appear virtually in a room of the Los Angeles court starting Thursday for a two -day hearing that will examine a very disputed question: the brothers, who meet life sentences without probation for probation for the murder of their parents’ shotgun in 1989, be free?
The former prosecutor of the best of Los Angeles County, George Gascón, believed they should. After more than three decades in prison, he called them to the “Model” inmates and, in October, his office recommended that Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, sits to the feeling of 50 years of life, a prison term that would make them eligible for probation immediately.
This position has been supported by celebrities and many of the relatives of the victims, who in recent months have frequently talked about the achievements of the brothers in prison and the abuse they believe that the brothers suffered at the hands of their father, José Menéndez.
But Gascón was voted in November, and his replacement, Nathan Hochman, has had a very different vision of the case.
Hochman, a former federal prosecutor and general advisor to a commercial litigation firm, said that after his office launched a review of tens of thousands of pages of trial transcripts, prison records and other evidence, he concluded that the brothers have not assumed the total responsibility of their crimes.
Last month, Hochman said he would withdraw Gascon’s recommendation.
In judicial documents and in a press conference, the district prosecutor and his deputies have indicated 16 lies “without recognized” who say that the brothers have talked about the murders. Among those lies, prosecutors have said, was the statement of the brothers who killed their parents in self -defense after Lyle faced his father for his alleged abuse of Erik.
This statement appeared prominently during the first trial of the brothers, which ended with a jury hanging in January 1994. During his second judgment, a ruling of the high court prohibited the brothers from invoking a “imperfect” self -defense, as the legal doctrine is known. They were convicted of first degree murder.
The prosecutors who judged the brothers have described the murders as cold blood and financially motivated. One of the prosecutors in the second trial, Juan Mejia, told NBC News last year that his mother may have known about the alleged abuse and did nothing about it.
“But there is no justification to shoot your mother eight times with a shotgun and recharge,” he said.
Hochman has taken a similar position and said that if the brothers “clean” with the court, their family and the public, “it can be said that they have a total responsibility and completely accepted by their actions.”
The brothers’ family replied that Hochman’s evaluation was based on “outdated arguments, a misleading presentation of facts and a deep misunderstanding of the purpose of the resentment process itself.”
The district prosecutor could not undo the process initiated by his predecessor “simply because a different administration is in office,” said a defense group led by the family, the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, in a statement earlier this month.
The two parties faced during a long audience on the matter last week, with a district attached prosecutor who told the alleged lies of the brothers and details the “severity” of the murders.
The defense focused on the actions of the brothers while being imprisoned: they have helped inmates with severe disabilities, university courses completed and established a project of “beautification” of green spaces, and criticized the Prosecutor’s Office for showing a photo of the crime scene that the lawyer said members of the Menéndez family “retraumatized” that attended the audience.
Later, the family said they wanted the district prosecutor’s office to be withdrawn from the case on the image. Hochman’s office apologized for not previously warning that the siblings’ behavior would be described in detail not only in words but also through a photo of the crime scene. “
At the end of the day hearing last week, the judge who supervises the case said that both parties had strong arguments that were kept better for this week.
Regardless of the result of the audience, the brothers are still following two other ways to freedom: a request for clemency with the governor of California Gavin Newsom and a petition that cites what the defense team has described as a new evidence that seeks to cancel the sentences of the brothers. Both efforts remain in progress.
