Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom may now be derailed after LA district legal professional election | EUROtoday

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The Menendez brothers’ likelihood of freedom hangs within the steadiness but once more after the Los Angeles County District Attorney who really helpful their resentencing was defeated on the poll field on Election Day.

Last month, LA County District Attorney George Gascón introduced his advice that Lyle, 56, and Erik Menendez, 53, obtain a brand new sentence of fifty years to life in jail for the 1989 double murder of their mother and father, saying he believed the brothers had “paid their debt to society.” Because the boys have been below 26 on the time of the crimes, this new sentence would make them eligible for parole instantly, having spent nearly 35 years behind bars.

But on Tuesday, their potential path to freedom hit a roadblock: Gascón misplaced his re-election bid to former assistant legal professional General Nathan Hochman.

Hochman, who will take workplace on December 2, has mentioned that he now needs to do his personal due diligence on the case, consulting the brothers’ information, the authorities and their attorneys earlier than continuing.

“Before I can make any decision about the Menendez brothers’ case, I will need to become thoroughly familiar with the relevant facts, the evidence and the law,” Hochman mentioned in a press release on Wednesday.

“I will have to review the confidential prison files for each brother, the transcripts from both trials, and speak to the prosecutors, law enforcement, defense counsel, and the victims’ family members.”

The listening to to find out Gascón’s request is at the moment scheduled for December 11, which might give Hochman simply 9 days to assessment the brothers’ case after taking workplace if that’s to go forward.

“If for some reason I need additional time, I will ask the court for that time,” Hochman concluded.

On August 20, 1989, the brothers walked right into a room within the rich household’s Beverly Hills mansion whereas their mother and father José and Kitty have been watching TV and opened hearth with 12-gauge shotguns, killing them each.

Seven years later, in July 1996, the Menendez brothers have been sentenced to life in jail with out the potential for parole for the murders, following their second trial.

In their first high-profile televised trials in 1993 – with separate juries – the brothers’ attorneys argued that they had acted in self-defense following years of sexual and bodily abuse by the hands of their father.

One cousin testified that Lyle informed her as a baby that he was too scared to sleep in his room as a result of his father would are available and molest him. When the cousin informed Kitty, she “angrily dragged Lyle upstairs by his arm,” she informed the courtroom.

Another member of the family testified that when José was within the bed room with one of many boys, nobody was allowed to stroll down the hallway outdoors.

Prosecutors, in the meantime, claimed the brothers had murdered their mother and father to get their fingers on the household’s $15m fortune.

The trial led to a hung jury in January 1994.

They have been tried a second time in October 1995 the place the choose dominated that the jury couldn’t hear a lot of the testimony in regards to the alleged abuse. That trial ended of their convictions on two counts of first-degree homicide.

Last yr, attorneys for the brothers filed new proof that reportedly sheds additional gentle on the alleged abuse as members of the family, human rights advocates and even celebrities have known as for his or her freedom.

The brothers’ story has since been launched as a Netflix biographical crime drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.