On Thursday, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced his office would recommend the resentencing of Erik and Lyle Menendez for the 1989 killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Gascón made it clear the decision divided his office, with some firmly believing the Menendez brothers deserved to spend the rest of their lives in jail while others thought they served their time.
Ultimately, it came down to the facts of the case.
“After very careful review of all the arguments… I came to a place where I believe that, under the law, resentencing is appropriate, and I am going to recommend that to a court tomorrow,” he told reporters.
Gascón said he planned to recommend a sentence of 50 years to life, which would make the brothers, now in their 50s, immediately eligible for parole since they were under 26 at the time the crimes were committed.
The brothers are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted to fatally shooting their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. Their defense attorneys argued the brothers acted in self-defense because they feared their father might kill them if they went public about the abuse the brothers endured at the hands of their father.
Multiple members of the Menendez brothers’ extended family, including Kitty Menendez’s sister Joan Andersen VanderMolen and Anamaria Baralt, Jose Menendez’s niece, have been pleading for their release claiming society’s view on sexual abuse has changed for the better since the brothers’ 1996 trial.
Had they been sentenced today they would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
With the support of the Menendez brothers’ extended family and new evidence, plus the brothers’ attempt to rehabilitate themselves in prison, Gascón said resentencing is “appropriate.”
“They have been in prison for nearly 35 years. I believe that they have paid their debt to society.”
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