December 3 can’t come quickly sufficient received the Menendez Brothers.
The primary week after Thanksgiving finds new Los Angeles County District Legal professional Nathan Hochman taking workplace. As the previous U.S. Assistant Legal professional Basic made clear in his profitable marketing campaign in opposition to one-term incumbent George Gascón and since his November 5 landslide victory, one of many first issues the brand new DA might be treating as a self-declared “high priority” is the transfer his predecessor began on October 24 on a possible resentencing of the lengthy incarcerated siblings.
“As soon as I take workplace on December 3, I stay up for placing within the onerous work to completely assessment the details and regulation of the Menendez case, together with reviewing the confidential jail recordsdata, the transcripts of the 2 trials and the voluminous reveals, in addition to talking with the prosecutors, protection attorneys and sufferer relations,” Hochman mentioned at the moment.
With a December 11 resentencing listening to presently on the calendar, Hochman hasn’t given away the place he stands on the excessive profile case. Nonetheless, after the late October one-two punch of clemency requests from the Menendezs to Gavin Newsom and “robust assist” letters from the then-poll challenged Gascón, the California Governor has hit pause — no less than in the intervening time.
“The governor respects the position of the district legal professional in making certain justice is served and acknowledges that voters have entrusted District Legal professional-elect Hochman to hold out this duty,” Newsom’s workplace exclaimed on Monday in an announcement that threw chilly water on the hopes of the Menendez brothers, a legion of their relations and different supporters, together with Gascón.
“The governor will defer to the D.A.-elect’s assessment and evaluation of the Menendez case prior to creating any clemency selections,” Newsom’s workplace added.
Which is to say, Newsom isn’t going to do Gascón any Menendez favors as the previous San Francisco DA exits his LA job a number of days after Turkey Day.
L.A. County District Legal professional George Gascón
If Hochman decides the December 11 resentencing listening to will go forward as scheduled, LA Superior Courtroom Decide William Ryan may shift the brothers penalty to manslaughter as a substitute of first-degree homicide, and so they may stroll out of jail quickly if a parole board agrees. Then once more, if each Hochman and Newsom did nothing to impede or encourage the matter, Decide Ryan may additionally order a model new trial for the Menendez brothers
A media sensation again in Invoice Clinton’s first time period, the brothers’ case has come again into the headlines in no small half due to new proof of sexual abuse by the boys music govt father revealed in Peacock’s 2023 docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed and extra lately Ryan Murphy’s true nine-part crime drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, which launched on Netflix on September 19. These reveals had been adopted by a Menendez docu on the Ted Sarando and Greg Peters-run streamer and advocacy for the brothers from the likes of Kim Kardashian and quite a lot of the killers’ relations.
Virtually three a long time after the brothers had been sentencing to life with out the the chance of parole of their second trial in 1996 for the brutal shotgun homicide of their mother and father in 1989, the DA-to-be additionally hasn’t declared whether or not or not he’ll search a pause on any additional steps in the direction of doubtlessly seeing the 54-year-old Erik Menendez and 56-year-old Lyle Menendez free of the state jail close to San Diego that presently holds them.
It’s unlikely Gascón will play way more of a job within the case in his remaining days. Proper now, the one milestone within the case beneath his remaining watch is a November 25 standing listening to out on the Van Nuys Courthouse West. A listening to that proper now, very a lot has an air of “hurry up and wait” about it.
