A resentencing hearing to determine whether Eric and Lyle Menendez, who killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home decades ago, is underway Tuesday, just days after a new assessment changed the brothers’ risk status.
The Menendez brothers are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their mother, Kitty Menendez, and father, Jose Menendez. The brothers were 18 and 21 at the time of the killings.
While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
Family members say the brothers have been rehabilitated after more than 30 years in prison and should be released, which a resentencing could allow, but Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman does not agree.
“I don’t think they should be resentenced right now,” Hochman said in a recent interview. “They’ve not come clean with all of the lies that they have told over the last 30 years about their crime. And full insight into one’s actions is a huge signal that you’ve been rehabilitated. And if you haven’t been rehabilitated, you continue to constitute a risk of violence and danger to society.”
The hearing, which is expected to last two days, also comes in the wake of findings shared in a comprehensive risk assessment by the state’s parole board.
The report raised the brothers’ risk level from “low” to “moderate” and contained a rules infraction involving a cellphone, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“Now we have board-certified psychologists that are also agreeing,” Hochman said, referring to the report. “He violates the rules of the prison that he’s at when he gets an illegal cellphone … You would think that someone would be on their best behavior if they knew that a judge was going to reconsider their resentencing motion,” Hochman said.
Defense attorney Mark Geragos responded to the cellphone incident on Friday, downplaying the severity of the infraction.
“The standard for the judge … is, are they likely to commit a ‘super strike’? Last time I looked, cellphones in prison are not a ‘super strike,’” Geragos said.
In California, a “super strike” refers to a specific list of extremely serious felonies such as murder or sexual assault.
It was not known if the brothers would testify during the resentencing hearing, but KTLA reporter Annie Rose Ramos has heard that it was unlikely.
No cameras will be allowed in the courtroom.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.