“We conclude, in our informal response, that the court should deny the current habeas petition by the Menendez brothers,” he said during a press conference Friday.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has weighed in on the fate of the Menendez brothers and their hopes to be set free: He’s asking the court to deny the Menendez brothers’ habeas corpus petition, which aims to get a new trial or the case tossed out.
The brothers were convicted in 1996 of the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were 21 and 18, respectively, at the time, admitted to gunning down their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills home. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, but prosecutors alleged they killed for money.
Two new pieces of evidence are at the center of the petition, but according to Hochman, neither meet the requirements for a new trial.
One is a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin Andy Cano eight months before the murders, detailing his alleged sexual abuse from his father. The cousin testified about the alleged abuse at trial, but the letter — which would have corroborated the cousin’s testimony — wasn’t found until several years ago, according to the brothers’ attorney.
The second piece is allegations from a former member of the boy band Menudo, Roy Rossello, who revealed in 2023 that he was raped by the brothers’ father, Jose Menendez.
Hochman explained that the standard for a successful habeas petition has multiple requirements: You must show that it’s new evidence; you must show that it’s timely and the evidence could not be discovered at the time of the trial; you must show you didn’t engage in a delay by the time you learned of the evidence and brought your motion; the evidence must be credible; and the evidence must be admissible.
“We conclude, in our informal response, that the court should deny the current habeas petition by the Menendez brothers,” he said during a press conference Friday.
Hochman argues the letter to Cano is not credible evidence.
“If this letter truly existed, the defense counsel would have absolutely used it at the trial because it would help corroborate” testimony from Cano and Erik Menendez, Hochman said.
Erik Menendez at his second trial testified for seven days about graphic descriptions of his sexual abuse from ages of 6 to 18 and also talked about the sexual abuse his brother experienced from their father, the district attorney said.
Asked who he disclosed to, Erik Menendez said he told Cano when he was 12 or 13 years old.
Cano — who died in 2003 — testified in the 1990s and relayed that same information: that Erik Menendez mentioned abuse six years before the murders and that was the only communication they had about the sexual abuse, the district attorney said.
That letter was never discussed at either of the two trials, Hochman said.
Erik Menendez claimed he didn’t know about the letter until a 2015 Barbara Walters special published it, but this habeas motion was not filed until 2023, Hochman said.
The defense in this habeas motion argued that to resolve this case jurors had to decide if the brothers were sexually molested by their father — but the jury never had to resolve that question, Hochman said. Instead, the jury had to determine if the brothers conspired to kill their parents, if they killed them, what their state of mind was, and if they did so, if they acted in self-defense, Hochman said.
Hochman said Rossello’s claims fail the admissibility standard for the habeas petition because the brothers didn’t know about Rossello’s allegations until recent years, so it couldn’t have influenced their state of mind during the crime and “couldn’t play a role in self-defense or premeditated murder.”
Hochman also argued that the Menendez brothers lied at different markers before, during and after killing their parents, and also said that sexual abuse does not constitute self-defense.
Besides the habeas corpus petition, the brothers have been pursuing two other paths to freedom.
One other path is through resentencing, which Hochman said his office will deal with in the coming weeks.
The third path to freedom is through clemency. The brothers submitted a request for clemency to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I hope what Gov. Newsom will do is what we have done. Certainly if he doesn’t already have the 50,000 plus pages of trial transcripts, we’ll make that available to him. I hope he speaks to prosecutors, defense attorneys, the Menendez family members. I hope he reviews all the rehabilitation records,” he said.
On Friday, a spokesperson for the governor said in a statement, “The Governor respects the role of the District Attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney Hochman to carry out this responsibility. The Governor will defer to the DA’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
Abuse does not exist in a vacuum. It leaves lasting scars, rewires the brain, and traps victims in cycles of fear and trauma.
Family of Erik and Lyle Menendez
The family of Erik and Lyle Menendez released a statement saying in part, “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.”
They also called on Hochman to “follow the law and issue a resentencing recommendation.” That is what Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascón, had called for.
In October, Gascón announced that he was recommending the brothers’ sentence of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence. Weeks after Gascón’s announcement, he lost his race for reelection to Hochman.
The brothers’ next resentencing hearing is on March 20 and 21.
ABC News contributed to this report.
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“We conclude, in our informal response, that the court should deny the current habeas petition by the Menendez brothers,” he said during a press conference Friday.