Timing is everything in politics and the law, and Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman certainly is using it to his presumed advantage today when it comes to the Menendez brothers and their potential parole.
“The Menendez brothers have never fully accepted responsibility for the horrific murders of their parents, instead continuing to promote a false narrative of self-defense that was rejected by the jury decades ago,” Hochman said today, less than 24 hours before Erik Menendez‘s parole hearing is scheduled to start and around 48 hours ahead of Lyle Menendez‘s hearing.
To that end, Erik Menendez’s virtual parole hearing will kick off around 8:30 am PT on August 21 and is anticipated to last anywhere up to three hours. His brother will follow a similar schedule on Friday. While it might take days or weeks, a written decision from the parole board could come as early as the conclusion of the individual hearings.
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“While recent documentaries and films have drawn renewed attention to this case, parole decisions must be based solely on the facts and the law,” Hochman declared today.
With that additional swipe at Netflix and Ryan Murphy‘s admittedly influential and much watched series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and Peacock docs on the brothers, their crime and time, the tone and content of the DA’s words Wednesday pretty much echo what Hochman — who was elected in a tough-on-crime landslide last year over one-term incumbent George Gascón — has been saying for months about the high-profile siblings. Now in their mid-50s, the brothers, who brutally shotgunned their allegedly abusive father Jose and their mother Kitty to death in the family’s Beverly Hills home in 1989, have been in custody in one form or another for going on 40 years.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman (Getty Images)
Whatever the outcome of this week’s hearings, due to the parole review process, the Menendez brothers won’t be getting out of the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego ASAP.
However, Hochman, on the 36th anniversary to the day of killing of the record company exec Jose and spouse Kitty, did toss a slight wild card into the works Wednesday — depending on what occurs before the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Board of Parole Hearing starting Thursday.
“We have consistently opposed their release because they have not demonstrated full insight into their crimes or shown that they have been fully rehabilitated, and therefore continue to pose a risk to society,” the one-time GOP DA noted, before offering a (un)likely change of heart: “We will evaluate our final position based on the evidence presented at the hearing.”
Along with members of his prosecution team, Hochman is expected to be attending at least a portion of the virtual hearings this week. His appearance is nothing new. In front of the camera like the Menendez lawyers Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos, Hochman has been at almost every Menendez hearing since the beginning of the year.
After those often-delayed hearings, a series of interventions by media-sensitive Gov. Gavin Newsom, endorsements from celebs like Kim Kardashian and a quite often circus-like atmosphere around the matter altogether, the Menendez brothers were resentenced on May 13 to 50 years to life, which made them suddenly eligible for parole. At that dramatic May hearing, which was bit of a public flogging of the DA’s office, L.A. Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic ruled that Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, did not pose “an unreasonable risk” if they were released. The brothers have been behind bars since being sentenced to life without parole following a second trial in 1996.
Originally supposed to occur on June 13, as dictated by Gov. Newsom in February as part of a potential clemency process, the respective individual Menendez hearings were shifted to the more infamous dates in late May because, as Lyle Menendez said on social media, the siblings and their lawyers required “more time to prepare.”
The first of many steps in the Menendez brothers walking out of prison after decades, this week’s parole hearings are far out of public view — with limited attendance and information available.
Family members and victims’ next of kin — who in this case are one and the same — can join in remotely too. With most of the living Menendez family advocating for their relatives release, the family put out a statement late on August 19 saying they were “cautiously optimistic” about the hearings.
Each brother will be before what is expected to be one Board of Parole commissioner and one deputy commissioner. The brothers’ lawyers more than likely will be with them in person at the location they are signing in from. A pool report is allowed to observe the proceedings but only can transmit information to other approved media at specific junctions, and there are restrictions on when stories on the hearing(s) can be published or broadcast.
In the event the board decides the Menendezes should get parole, the Board of Parole chief counsel has a maximum of 120 days to go over the grant to make sure all the “t”s are crossed and “i”s are dotted.
Then it goes to Gov. Newsom’s desk, where he has 30 days to accept the board’s decision, reject it or ask for it to be modified or reconsidered. It should be noted, as out front as Newsom has been on the Menendez case, last year he reversed the Board of Parole’s finding to let Sen. Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 assassin Sirhan Sirhan out of prison.
Let’s say Gov, Newsom does go along with the Board of Parole’s hypothetical parole approval for the Menendez brothers — then they could be out by the New Year.
If the parole board decides one or both of the brothers doesn’t deserve parole, parties such as their family or lawyers immediately could ask for a review based on potential factual inaccuracies and seek a new ruling. If that falls short, it could be anywhere from three to 15 years for they get another kick at the get-out-of-jail can.