Menendez Brothers Resentencing Now Off Until Next Month As Lawyers & Judge Look Over Parole Board Report Ordered By Gavin Newsom
BREAKING … The Menendez brothers will still get their day in court, but the long incarcerated siblings will have to wait until next month to see if they will be resentenced or not for the 1989 shotgun murder of their parents.
With the brothers joining via video, Judge Michael Jesic initially decided this morning to go forward with the two-day scheduled resentencing session this morning and cast aside an 11th hour motion of continuance from the LA County District Attorney's office over a state parole board risk assessment report ordered earlier this year by Gov. Gavin Newsom. However, after some fireworks between Nathan Hochman's office and defense attorneys in and outside the Van Nuys courthouse, the LA Superior Court judge has pushed back any resentencing hearing until at least May 9.
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With all sides getting an opportunity to look over the semi-completed report and contemplate its admissibility, that hearing next month could be closed and take place in the judge's chambers due to sensitive material in that risk assessment report. In fact, the May 9 hearing could be consumed with motions from both sides and never even get around to resentencing, Also, the confidential and unfinished risk assessment report is but one of many aspects of what the parole board uses to assess keeping the siblings in or out of prison.
Back in the media and public spotlight in no small part due to the success of the Netflix and Ryan Murphy series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story series and some documentaries claiming new evidence, the Menendez brothers now insist the shooting of José Menendez and Kitty Menendez was self-defense against the ongoing sexual abuse by their record company executive father.
Prosecutors for the DA's office and the defense's Mark Geragos and Bryan Freedman were still conferring with Judge Jesic for a few minutes after the decision to delay until May was made, but it was clear to all that this was over for now. Originally, even though Judge Jesic said he would not have a decision this week, the resentencing was supposed to run today and April 18.Already delayed several times before because of elections, wildfires and more, those dates have just been scrubbed from the court calendar.
None of which pleases the defense and the Menendez family, many of whom traveled far and wide to be at this week's hearings.
'It's become a mockery,' Freedman said of Hochman and his office outside the courtroom after the pause was put in place. 'Does he have a personal grudge against Lyle and Erik?' the attorney added, noting the defense will be filing paperwork to have the DA's office recused from the case. In court today, Geragos said he had 'lost faith' in Hochman to conduct himself fairly.
After the break, Judge Jesic told the lawyers, Menendez family members that there could be material in the risk assessment report that may constitute evidence and alter any questioning of witnesses. Even with unresolved issues of the DA's office being accused of being abusive to the family and violating their rights as victims by unexpectedly showing 1989 crime scene photos in court last week, Jude Jesic made it apparent it is to ensure the report is treated with the utmost care that he kicked everything down the road.
This new delay in the much delayed resentencing comes after a two-hour break that ended at 1:30 pm PT as prosecutors, the defense and Judge Jesic bartered and petitioned the governor's office for the full report and waiving of privilege to see it. Weighing a potential clemency for the 1996 life without parole sentenced Erik and Lyle Menendez, Newsom in late February ordered the assessment as part of an overall reexamination of the case and the siblings' rehabilitation.
That reexamination will culminate in individual hearings for each brother before the parole board on June 13. The day is important because that is why the report was shared with Deputy DA Habib Balian, who is overseeing the resentencing and the parole aspects of the case for Hochman. Under California regulations, a portion of the risk assessment report, which is subject to correction and updating. is to be handed over to the principal parties for their review 60 days before any clemency hearing, and is subject to correction — that is why Balian got it earlier this week.
Out of that June hearing, and the political winds of the Golden State, Newsom would make his decision to grant clemency or not. Elected in a landslide last year against George Gascón, who started the resentencing process the current DA is seeking to blunt, Hochman today reiterated his contention that the brothers have after all these decades not 'come clean with ..information' on 'why they brutally killed their parents.'
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