Three decades after one of the most publicized trials of the 1990s, the Menendez brothers, incarcerated for thirty-five years, returned to court in San Diego to plead their release.
Soon free? After thirty-five years spent behind bars, the Menendez brothers are preparing to plead their cause before a commission of the Californian department of correctional and reintegration services. Erik and Lyle, now aged 54 and 57 respectively, will be heard separately by videoconference this Thursday and this Friday. Their objective: to obtain parole.
Sentenced in 1996 to life prison without possibility of release, they admitted having killed their parents, José and Kitty Menendez. During the trial, the defense had invoked years of sexual abuse inflicted by their father, while the accusation argued that the two brothers had acted to appropriate an inheritance evaluated at $ 14 million. Justice had decided in favor of this latest version.
However, a turning point intervened last May: a Los Angeles judge commits their sentence in life imprisonment with a security period of 50 years, making them immediately eligible for a request for parole. A letter from Erik Menendez written to his cousin long before the murders of Kitty and Jose was indeed rediscovered: “I tried to avoid dad, it’s always going on Andy, but it’s worse for me now … I never know when it’s going to happen, it drives me crazy. Each night I wake up saying that he can go back.”
“Justice must never give in to the show”
The Commission will have to examine their prison behavior, their possible danger and the testimonies of the parties concerned. Erik, whose state of health is deemed fragile, and Lyle have announced that they would not evoke the reasons for murders, widely publicized through a recent series and documentary. Rather, they will try to demonstrate their repentance and to prove that they no longer represent a threat to society.
Their approach is nevertheless sown with pitfalls. The County Prosecutor of Los Angeles, Nathan Hochman, categorically opposed their release, believing that they have never fully assumed their acts and that they persist in defending contradictory versions of the facts (no less than five had been advanced during the investigation). “Justice should never give in to the show,” he insists.
If the Commission will make a recommendation after the hearings, the final decision will take several months. It will return to the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, who has not hesitated in the past to reject similar requests for very publicized detainees, in the Governor.
