Lyle and Erik Menendez were resentenced on Tuesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole, setting the stage for their possible release after more than three decades behind bars for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion.
The decision, by Judge Michael V. Jesic of Los Angeles Superior Court, came after a day of testimony by family members, who said the brothers had turned their lives around inside prison through education and self-help groups. They urged the court to reduce the brothers’ sentences for the 1989 killings.
While Judge Jesic’s decision was the most important legal step so far in the brothers’ long effort to win release, it is not the final step. In reducing the brothers’ sentences, the judge has allowed them to be immediately eligible for parole.
Now the attention will be on the state’s parole board. The brothers were already scheduled to appear before the board on June 13 as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s consideration of clemency, a separate process that has unfolded in parallel to the resentencing effort.
The decision to resentence the brothers is a remarkable turn in a saga that has gripped the nation’s attention for decades. In 1989, the story of sexual abuse and murder in one of America’s ritziest cities was irresistible to the media and public, and it foreshadowed an even greater obsession with another Los Angeles story — the murder case against O.J. Simpson.
The brothers said they burst into the den of their Beverly Hills mansion on a Sunday evening in 1989 and killed their parents with shotguns because they had endured years of sexual abuse from their father. They said they feared their parents would kill them to keep the abuse secret. At the time, Lyle was 21 and Erik, 18.
Now two middle-aged men, the brothers appeared remotely at the resentencing hearing on Tuesday from their prison near San Diego, sitting stoically in blue jumpsuits while witness after witness testified on their behalf.
Through a video feed, they both spoke on Tuesday afternoon, taking responsibility for their crimes and apologizing to their relatives, who sobbed softly in the courtroom.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
