Menendez Brothers’ Fate Could Shift With DA’s Shock Move

Lyle and Erik Menendez’s petition to secure their release from prison will be reviewed as two separate cases, according to Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman.

In a televised interview with NBC News, the freshly elected prosecutor emphasized his opposition to thinking of the brothers, who have been imprisoned for the last three decades for killing their parents, as a collective.

“While they’re called the Menendez Brothers case, there’s an Erik Menendez case and a Lyle Menendez case,” Hochman said. “So we will look at each case separately, which is the way they actually should be handled.”

Legal analyst Kevin Brackett, a prosecutor in South Carolina, told Court TV that even if the brothers’ cases are technically separated, they will still be legally treated as a collective insofar as their crimes were committed “in concert” with each other.

The brothers held the nation’s attention in the 1990s as they were tried for blasting their parents to death with shotguns, although they argued that the brutal slaying was motivated by sexual abuse at the hands of their father.

But the September release of a new Netflix documentary, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, brought renewed attention to the brothers—and calls for their release from prison.

The series' debut also synched up with an ongoing push by the brothers' attorney to garner their release, citing new evidence that their camp says supports the brothers' original defense that they were abused.

The previous Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascón, had vocally supported these efforts. Hochman, though, who took over in early December, has said he intends to come to his own stance on the matter.

On NBC, he signaled his belief that the the brothers, despite their fame, are not entitled to a more favorable review of their case than anyone else.

“This is an important decision, although that decision is not going to get a more rigorous review of the facts and law than any other decision, even though so many other decisions don’t get the media attention,” he told NBC. “What I’m actually hoping about the Menendez case is that people use that as the springboard to get interested in criminal justice issues.”

Although the brothers committed the 1989 killings together, they were initially tried for the murder in front of two separate juries, which resulted in a deadlock and a pair of mistrials. Their second trial, however, which resulted in their conviction and life sentences, had a single jury.

Hochman, as he reviews their case, has delayed a hearing on the prospect of resentencing the brothers until the end of January.