Menendez Politics: Family Praises Gavin Newsom Ordering Parole Board Probe As L.A. DA Punts New Trial & Big Hearing Looms
'The question for the board is a rather simple one, do Eric and Lyle Menendez, do they pose a current, what we call unreasonable risk to public safety?' the governor said earlier Wednesday of the now quinquagenarian siblings who were sentenced in 1996 to life without parole for the 1989 shotgun murder of their parents at their Beverly Hills home. 'The risk assessment will be conducted as they typically are conducted by experts in public safety as well as forensic psychologists.'
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'There's no guarantee of outcome here,' Newsom cautioned of the decades long high-profile case of that has seen the brothers behind bars for nearly 30 years.
'My office conducts dozens and dozens of these clemency reviews on a consistent basis. But this process simply provides more transparency, which I think is important in this case, as well as provides us more due diligence before I make any determination for clemency.'
Coming as California's term limited governor unveiled a new podcast project and hours before Newsom announces, 'a major statewide economic initiative' on LA's recovery for the devastating wildfires of earlier this year, the parole board order also follows the declaration last week from LA County DA Nathan Hochman coming out strongly against a new trial from the brothers.
With a planned press conference for today by members of the Menendez family suddenly postponed late Tuesda until Thursday, lawyers for the family were full of praise Wednesday for the Governor after weeks of apparent friction with the new-ish DA.
' Along with scores of Jose and Kitty Menendez's family members who have fought for years to see Erik and Lyle have a chance to finally come home, we are grateful for the Governor's decision,' attorneys Mark Geragos and Cliff Gardner said Wednesday. 'The family realizes that the Governor's action does not mean he will commute the sentences.
A petition for clemency from the Menendez family for the brothers landed was submitted to Newsom last fall, before the DA election that saw law-and-order candidate Hochman wiped out incumbent and overnight Menendez advocate George Gascón. Under the Golden State's constitution, as Hochman noted again and again in his presser of February 21, a governor has near unlimited power to grant clemency, which includes commutations of sentence and pardons. Soon after Hochman's landslide win in November, the governor stated that he would hold off on any action of his own until the new DA got in office and up to speed on the Menendez matter. 'The governor will defer to the D.A.-elect's review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions,' Newsom's office said on November 18.
Clearly that deference has reached a limit of sorts for the governor, which the Menendez family and their representatives made very clear today they appreciate.
'Instead, this initial step reflects the Governor's considered decision to at least obtain the information required to make a fair decision as to whether Erik and Lyle, after 35 years in prison, have done the hard work necessary to have a chance at a life outside prison,' the media savvy lawyers added of the parole board review decision by Newsom. 'Jose and Kitty's family members, as well as Erik and Lyle, can ask for nothing more.'
In many ways, the governor's move for the risk assessment was prompted by Hochman, who spent almost as much time in last week's hastily called press conference noting Newsom has 'absolutely unilateral full power, Constitutional power' to commute the brothers' individual sentences any time he like, as the DA spent explaining his opposition to a new trial for the brothers. Mired in internal politics, with two high-level Gascón era Assistant DAs suing the DA's office over perceived demotions in relation to their work on the Menendez case. Also, several family members hav expressed frustration with Hochman, especially over his hiring for a top position of a lawyer who until recently represented the Menendez uncle who is very vocally opposed to the brothers' getting out of prison.
The DA's office did not respond today to Deadline's request for comment on Gov. Newsom's parole board order.
Never far from the headlines over the years since the brothers' two trials, the Menendez case was resurrected for a new generation in part because of supposed new evidence of sexual abuse by the brothers' music executive father revealed in Peacock's 2023 docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, and more recently, Ryan Murphy's extremely well watched nine-part crime drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, which launched on Netflix on September 19 last year Those shows were followed by an also well-watched Menendez documentary on the Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters-run streamer, along advocacy for the brothers from the likes of Kim Kardashian and a number of the killers' family members.
After several delays due to the DA race and new regime, the resentencing hearing for the Menendenz brothers, who have been popping up on a number of podcasts of late, is set for March 20-21 in front of LA Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic.
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