Latest news with #JoseMenendez
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Menendez brothers suffer crushing blow after murder sentences were reduced leading to hopes of parole
Erik and Lyle Menendez have been dealt a crushing blow just a week after becoming eligible for parole. The brothers were due to face a parole board on June 13, but that hearing has now been pushed back by more than two months to take place on August 21 and 22. The latest setback delays any possibility of freedom by at least nine weeks, after already spending 35 years behind bars for after murdering both of their parents. The brothers appeared in Los Angeles County Superior Court last Tuesday, where Judge Michael Jesic reduced their sentences from life without parole to 50 years to life. The change means they're eligible to apply for parole under California 's youthful offender law because they committed the crime under the age of 26. But the June 13 date was already scheduled as a separate pathway to freedom. Governor Gavin Newsom was due to reveal whether he would consider clemency for the brothers. The brothers were ordered in 1996 to spend the rest of their lives in prison f or fatally shooting their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home. The brothers were 18 and 21 at the time of the killings. Defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, while prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance. The state parole board must still decide whether to release them from prison. 'I'm not saying they should be released, it's not for me to decide,' Jesic said. 'I do believe they've done enough in the past 35 years, that they should get that chance.' The brothers are broadly supported by their relatives, many of whom testified on their behalf on Tuesday. One said the duo had been 'universally forgiven by the family' for their actions. 'Today, 35 years later, I am deeply ashamed of who I was,' Lyle told the court. 'I killed my mom and dad. I make no excuses and also no justification. The impact of my violent actions on my family... is unfathomable.' The defense began by calling Ana Maria Baralt, a cousin of Erik and Lyle, who testified that the brothers have repeatedly expressed remorse for their actions. 'We all, on both sides of the family, believe that 35 years is enough,' Baralt said. 'They are universally forgiven by our family.' Another cousin, Tamara Goodell, said she had recently taken her 13-year-old son to meet the brothers in prison, and that they would contribute a lot of good to the world if released. Hernandez, who also testified during Erik and Lyle's first trial, spoke about the abuse she witnessed in the Menendez household when she lived with them and the so-called 'hallway rule.' 'When Jose was with one of the boys … you couldn't even go up the stairs to be on the same floor,' Hernandez said of the father. The previous LA County District Attorney George Gascón had opened the door to possible freedom for the brothers last fall by asking a judge to reduce their sentences. The brothers appeared in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, where Judge Michael Jesic reduced their sentences from life without parole to 50 years to life Gascón's office said the case would've been handled differently today due to modern understandings of sexual abuse and trauma, and the brothers' rehabilitation over three decades in prison. A resentencing petition laid out by Gascón focuses on the brothers' accomplishments and rehabilitation. Since their conviction, the brothers have gotten an education, participated in self-help classes and started various support groups for their fellow inmates. But current district attorney Nathan Hochman said Tuesday that he believes the brothers are not ready for resentencing because 'they have not come clean' about their crimes. His office also has said it does not believe they were sexually abused. 'Our position is not "no," it's not "never," it's "not yet,"' Hochman said. 'They have not fully accepted responsibility for all their criminal conduct.' On August 20, 1989, armed with two shotguns, the brothers shot both parents to death as they watched a movie at their Beverly Hills mansion. Their trial prompted worldwide headlines. Prosecutors said their motive was greed, as they stood to inherit $14 million from their parents. The brothers insisted they acted against a father who sexually abused them for years and a mother who turned a blind eye to the abuse. The first trial ended with a hung jury. But at a second trial in 1996 - where the judge refused to allow any evidence about the brothers being molested by their father - they were convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. New interest in the case was sparked by the recent Netflix drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and the true crime documentary The Menendez Brothers. Both films explain how the brothers claimed to police that they returned home from the theater to find their parents had been slaughtered. At first it was feared that a vicious killer was on the loose in Beverly Hills, one of America's wealthiest communities. But cops switched their suspicions to Lyle and Erik after they set about spending their inheritance soon after their parents' deaths. Lyle bought a Porsche Carrera, Rolex watch and two restaurants, while his brother hired a full-time tennis coach to begin competing in tournaments. In all, they spent $700,000 between the time of their parents' deaths and their arrests in March 1990, seven months after the murders. Erik - who said his father abused him from the age of six to 12 - insisted in the new documentary that it's 'absurd' to suggest he was having a good time in the immediate aftermath of the murders. 'Everything was to cover up this horrible pain of not wanting to be alive,' he said. 'One of the things that stopped me from killing myself was that I would be a complete failure to my dad.'
BreakingNews.ie
21-05-2025
- BreakingNews.ie
Parole hearing for Menendez brothers delayed until August
Erik and Lyle Menendez's hearing in front of the California state parole board has been pushed back to August, their attorneys said. The delay comes after governor Gavin Newsom withdrew his request for the parole board to evaluate the brothers for clemency as they seek their freedom after 35 years behind bars for killing their parents. Advertisement The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time. A Los Angeles judge opened the door to freedom last week by giving the brothers a new sentence of 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole under California law because they were under the age of 26 when they committed their crimes. They initially had a clemency hearing scheduled in June, but it has since been converted to a parole suitability hearing and pushed back to August 21 and 22, their lawyers said. Scott Wyckoff, executive officer of the California Board of Parole Hearings, said in an email to attorneys on both sides that Mr Newsom withdrew the request for a clemency investigation last Thursday in light of the judge's re-sentencing decision. Advertisement The governor's office declined to comment on the decision but noted that the clemency application was still considered active. The brothers' cousin, Anamaria Baralt, said in a video posted on her TikTok that the change would benefit the brothers, given that many people are not granted parole at their first hearing. 'This is not a bad thing,' Ms Baralt said. 'Most people prepare for parole for like a year… the more time that they can have to prepare, the better.' Advertisement
Associated Press
21-05-2025
- Associated Press
Parole hearing for Menendez brothers delayed until August
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Erik and Lyle Menendez's hearing in front of the California state parole board has been pushed back to August, their attorneys said Tuesday. The delay comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom withdrew his request for the parole board to evaluate the brothers for clemency as they seek their freedom after 35 years behind bars for killing their parents. The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. They were 18 and 21 at the time. A Los Angeles judge opened the door to freedom last week by giving the brothers a new sentence of 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole under California law because they were under the age of 26 when they committed their crimes. They initially had a clemency hearing scheduled in June, but it has since been converted to a parole suitability hearing and pushed back to Aug. 21 and 22, their lawyers said. Scott Wyckoff, executive officer of the California Board of Parole Hearings, said in an email to attorneys on both sides that Gov. Newsom withdrew the request for a clemency investigation last Thursday in light of the judge's resentencing decision. The governor's office declined to comment on the decision but noted that the clemency application was still considered active. The brothers' cousin, Anamaria Baralt, said in a video posted on her TikTok that the change would benefit the brothers, given that many people are not granted parole at their first hearing. 'This is not a bad thing,' Baralt said. 'Most people prepare for parole for like a year ... the more time that they can have to prepare, the better.'
Arab News
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
The Menendez brothers case reflects a shifting culture across decades
LOS ANGELES: The trials of Lyle and Erik Menendez came at a time of cultural obsession with courts, crime and murder, when live televised trials captivated a national audience. Their resentencing — and the now very real possibility of their freedom — came at another, when true crime documentaries and docudramas have proliferated and brought renewed attention to the family. A judge made the Menendez brothers eligible for parole Tuesday when he reduced their sentences from life without parole to 50 years to life for the 1989 murder of their father Jose Menendez and mother Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home. The state parole board will now determine whether they can be released. Their two trials bookended the O.J. Simpson trial, creating a mid-1990s phenomenon where courts subsumed soap operas as riveting daytime television. 'People were not used to having cameras in the courtroom. For the first time we were seeing the drama of justice in real time,' said Vinnie Politan, a Court TV anchor who hosts the nightly 'Closing Arguments' on the network. 'Everyone was watching cable and everyone had that common experience. Today there's a true crime bonanza happening, but it's splintered off into so many different places.' The brothers became an immediate sensation with their 1990 arrest. They represented a pre-tech-boom image of young wealthy men as portrayed in many a 1980s movie: the tennis-playing, Princeton-bound prep. For many viewers, this image was confirmed by the spending spree they went on after the killings. Their case continued a fascination with the dark, private lives of the young and wealthy that goes back at least to the Leopold and Loeb murder case of the 1930s, but had been in the air in cases like the Billionaire Boys Club, a 1980s Ponzi scheme that spurred a murder. The first Menendez trial becomes compelling live TV Their first trials in 1993 and 1994 became a landmark for then-new Court TV, which aired it nearly in its entirety. Defense lawyers conceded that they had shot their parents. The jury, and the public, then had to consider whether the brothers' testimony about sexual and other abuse from their father was plausible, and should mean conviction on a lesser charge. The lasting image from the trial was Lyle Menendez crying on the stand as he described the abuse. At the time there had been some public reckoning with the effects of sex abuse, but not nearly to the extent of today. The two juries — one for each brother — deadlocked, largely along gender lines. It reflected the broader cultural reaction — with women supporting a manslaughter conviction and men a guilty verdict for first-degree murder. A tough-on-crime era, and a Menendez trial sequel The trials came at a time when crime in the US was at an all-time high, a tough-on-crime stance was a prerequisite for holding major political office, and a wave of legislation mandating harsher sentences was passed. That attitude appeared to prevail when, at their second trial, the brothers were both convicted of first-degree murder. As Associated Press trial reporter Linda Deutsch, who covered both trials along with Simpson's and countless others, wrote in 1996: 'This time, the jury rejected the defense claim that the brothers murdered their parents after years of sexual abuse. Instead, it embraced the prosecution theory that the killings were planned and that the brothers were greedy, spoiled brats who murdered to get their parents' $14 million fortune.' The second trial was not televised and got less attention. 'There were no cameras, it was in the shadow of O.J. so it didn't have the same spark and pop as the first one,' Politan said. The Menendez brothers become a distant memory They had become too well-known to be forgotten, but for decades, the Menendez brothers faded into the background. Occasional stories emerged about the brothers losing their appeals, as did mugshots of them aging in prison. 'The public's memory of them was, 'Yeah, I remember that trial, the guys with the sweaters in court,'' Politan said. That would change in the era of true-crime TV, podcasts and streamers. True crime goes big The 2017 NBC drama series 'Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders,' wasn't widely watched, but still brought the case new attention. The next decade would prove more important. The 2022 Max docuseries 'Menudo: Forever Young' included a former member saying he was raped by Jose Menendez when he was 14. At about the same time, the brothers submitted a letter that Erik wrote to his cousin about his father's abuse before the killings. The new true-crime wave would continue to promote them, even if the portrayal wasn't always flattering. ' Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,' a drama created by Ryan Murphy on Netflix, made them beautiful and vain buffoons, and the actors were shown shirtless on provocative billboards. Javier Bardem as Jose Menendez brought Oscar-winning star power to the project that dropped in September of last year. That was followed a month later by a documentary on Netflix, 'The Menendez Brothers.' Together, the shows had the public paying more attention to the case than it had since the trials. Almost simultaneously came a real-life turning point, when then- Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said he was reviewing new evidence in the case. The office of Gascón's successor, Nathan Hochman, opposed the resentencing. Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian constantly sought at hearings to make sure the 'carnage' caused by the brothers wasn't forgotten, and repeatedly emphasized that they 'shotgunned, brutally, their parents to death.' But the shifts in public perception and legal actions were already in motion. The judge's decision to reduce their charges came not with the drama of the televised trial, but in a short hearing in a courtroom that wouldn't allow cameras. The broader public never saw. Despite his opposition, Hochman was reflective in a statement after the resentencing. 'The case of the Menendez brothers has long been a window for the public to better understand the judicial system,' Hochman said. 'This case, like all cases — especially those that captivate the public — must be viewed with a critical eye. Our opposition and analysis ensured that the Court received a complete and accurate record of the facts. Justice should never be swayed by spectacle.'
The Independent
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
The Menendez brothers case reflects a shifting culture across decades
The trials of Lyle and Erik Menendez came at a time of cultural obsession with courts, crime and murder, when live televised trials captivated a national audience. Their resentencing — and the now very real possibility of their freedom — came at another, when true crime documentaries and docudramas have proliferated and brought renewed attention to the family. A judge made the Menendez brothers eligible for parole Tuesday when he reduced their sentences from life without parole to 50 years to life for the 1989 murder of their father Jose Menendez and mother Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home. The state parole board will now determine whether they can be released. Their two trials bookended the O.J. Simpson trial, creating a mid-1990s phenomenon where courts subsumed soap operas as riveting daytime television. ' People were not used to having cameras in the courtroom. For the first time we were seeing the drama of justice in real time,' said Vinnie Politan, a Court TV anchor who hosts the nightly 'Closing Arguments' on the network. "Everyone was watching cable and everyone had that common experience. Today there's a true crime bonanza happening, but it's splintered off into so many different places.' The brothers became an immediate sensation with their 1990 arrest. They represented a pre-tech-boom image of young wealthy men as portrayed in many a 1980s movie: the tennis-playing, Princeton-bound prep. For many viewers, this image was confirmed by the spending spree they went on after the killings. Their case continued a fascination with the dark, private lives of the young and wealthy that goes back at least to the Leopold and Loeb murder case of the 1930s, but had been in the air in cases like the Billionaire Boys Club, a 1980s Ponzi scheme that spurred a murder. The first Menendez trial becomes compelling live TV Their first trials in 1993 and 1994 became a landmark for then-new Court TV, which aired it nearly in its entirety. Defense lawyers conceded that they had shot their parents. The jury, and the public, then had to consider whether the brothers' testimony about sexual and other abuse from their father was plausible, and should mean conviction on a lesser charge. The lasting image from the trial was Lyle Menendez crying on the stand as he described the abuse. At the time there had been some public reckoning with the effects of sex abuse, but not nearly to the extent of today. The two juries — one for each brother — deadlocked, largely along gender lines. It reflected the broader cultural reaction — with women supporting a manslaughter conviction and men a guilty verdict for first-degree murder. A tough-on-crime era, and a Menendez trial sequel The trials came at a time when crime in the U.S. was at an all-time high, a tough-on-crime stance was a prerequisite for holding major political office, and a wave of legislation mandating harsher sentences was passed. That attitude appeared to prevail when, at their second trial, the brothers were both convicted of first-degree murder. As Associated Press trial reporter Linda Deutsch, who covered both trials along with Simpson's and countless others, wrote in 1996: 'This time, the jury rejected the defense claim that the brothers murdered their parents after years of sexual abuse. Instead, it embraced the prosecution theory that the killings were planned and that the brothers were greedy, spoiled brats who murdered to get their parents' $14 million fortune.' The second trial was not televised and got less attention. 'There were no cameras, it was in the shadow of O.J. so it didn't have the same spark and pop as the first one,' Politan said. The Menendez brothers become a distant memory They had become too well-known to be forgotten, but for decades, the Menendez brothers faded into the background. Occasional stories emerged about the brothers losing their appeals, as did mugshots of them aging in prison. 'The public's memory of them was, 'Yeah, I remember that trial, the guys with the sweaters in court,'' Politan said. That would change in the era of true-crime TV, podcasts and streamers. True crime goes big The 2017 NBC drama series 'Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders," wasn't widely watched, but still brought the case new attention. The next decade would prove more important. The 2022 Max docuseries 'Menudo: Forever Young" included a former member saying he was raped by Jose Menendez when he was 14. At about the same time, the brothers submitted a letter that Erik wrote to his cousin about his father's abuse before the killings. The new true-crime wave would continue to promote them, even if the portrayal wasn't always flattering. " Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story," a drama created by Ryan Murphy on Netflix, made them beautiful and vain buffoons, and the actors were shown shirtless on provocative billboards. Javier Bardem as Jose Menendez brought Oscar-winning star power to the project that dropped in September of last year. That was followed a month later by a documentary on Netflix, 'The Menendez Brothers.' Together, the shows had the public paying more attention to the case than it had since the trials. Almost simultaneously came a real-life turning point, when then- Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said he was reviewing new evidence in the case. The office of Gascón's successor, Nathan Hochman, opposed the resentencing. Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian constantly sought at hearings to make sure the 'carnage' caused by the brothers wasn't forgotten, and repeatedly emphasized that they 'shotgunned, brutally, their parents to death.' But the shifts in public perception and legal actions were already in motion. The judge's decision to reduce their charges came not with the drama of the televised trial, but in a short hearing in a federal courtroom that wouldn't allow cameras. The broader public never saw. Despite his opposition, Hochman was reflective in a statement after the resentencing. 'The case of the Menendez brothers has long been a window for the public to better understand the judicial system,' Hochman said. 'This case, like all cases — especially those that captivate the public — must be viewed with a critical eye. Our opposition and analysis ensured that the Court received a complete and accurate record of the facts. Justice should never be swayed by spectacle.'
