Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has said his office will oppose a motion by attorneys seeking a new trial for Erik and Lyle Menendez.
The brothers are serving life in prison without parole in San Diego’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility for the 1989 slayings of their parents in Beverly Hills.
“The people believe it should be denied,” Hochman said of a 2023 “habeas” motion filed by attorneys for the brothers seeking a new trial in the case.
In a lengthy news conference Friday, Hochman challenged defense attorneys’ claims that new evidence supports allegations of sexual abuse by the brothers’ father, with the district attorney saying it is inadmissible on various grounds.
He also questioned whether the claims are actually new or being presented in a legally timely manner.
But Hochman also went over the brothers’ actions after the slayings, recounting their various statements to investigators – ranging from an original denial of involvement, to suggestions the mafia was involved, then later to sexual abuse allegations, and later to the brothers’ concerns the parents planned to kill them, prompting them to act first.
Hochman did not address a separate effort to have the brothers re- sentenced to a lesser prison term that might allow them to seek parole or be released on time served, saying his office was still reviewing that matter.
“We have not finalized where we’re going to end up” on the re- sentencing request, he said, citing additional legal standards involved in such a request.
Relatives of the Menendez brothers who are pushing for their release condemned Hochman’s comments, saying the district attorney is trying to bury the truth about the brothers’ abuse.
“District Attorney Nathan Hochman took us right back to 1996 today,” according to a statement from the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition. “He opened the wounds we have spent decades trying to heal. He didn’t listen to us. We are profoundly disappointed by his remarks, in which he effectively tore up new evidence and discredited the trauma they experienced.”
The family continued, “To suggest that the years of abuse couldn’t have led to the tragedy in 1989 is not only outrageous, but also dangerous. Abuse does not exist in a vacuum. It leaves lasting scars, rewires the brain, and traps victims in cycles of fear and trauma. To say it played no role in Erik and Lyle’s action is to ignore decades of psychological research and basic human understanding.”
During the news conference at the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles, Hochman said his office had filed an 80-plus-page response to the habeas petition submitted by the Menendez brothers in May 2023.
The filing was made pursuant to a court order and was posted on the District Attorney’s Office.
In addition to the court filing, the office posted an informational video online titled “The Anatomy of the Menendez Case.” Prosecutors said the video aims to “provide insight into the workings of the criminal justice system, using the Menendez case as a framework to explain legal proceedings.”
Menendez attorneys have also asked the governor to grant clemency to the brothers, but the governor has not taken any action on that request, saying he would defer to the District Attorney’s Office’s review of the case.
Hochman’s progressive predecessor as district attorney, George Gascón, came out in support of the effort to have the brothers’ conviction and sentencing reviewed, and for the pair to be potentially released.
After he was elected in November, Hochman said he needed time to fully review all the case documents before reaching a decision. A court hearing on the new-trial motion had been scheduled for late January, but was rescheduled to begin March 20 due to the Southland wildfires.
The brothers were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the chance of parole for killing Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez on Aug. 20, 1989.
Erik Menendez is now 53, and Lyle Menendez, 56.
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