Sentenced to life in jail practically three many years in the past, Erik and Lyle Menendez may have a shot at freedom as Los Angeles prosecutors comb by means of new proof.
In a Thursday information convention, Los Angeles County District Lawyer George Gascón shared that attorneys for the Menendezes had supplied new proof in a petition and requested the court docket to vacate their convictions. Gascón introduced a Nov. 29 listening to on potential resentencing .
“We’ve got not selected an end result. We’re reviewing info,” Gascón mentioned, per CNN, including that his workplace wasn’t sure of the “validity” of the brand new proof. “We’ll consider all of it.”
The pair killed their mother and father, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. They have been sentenced to life in jail in 1996 on their second homicide trial. That trial famously forbade the usage of most proof detailing attainable abuse of the brothers, a transfer that has lengthy impressed criticism from legal justice advocates together with Kim Kardashian. The brand new proof features a letter from Erik Menendez that his attorneys imagine backs up the brother’s claims of long-term sexual abuse by his father.
Erik and Lyle Menendez have lengthy been vocal in regards to the abuse they skilled by the hands of their father, Jose, an element they are saying ought to have performed into their sentencing.
Cliff Gardner, an lawyer for the Menendez brothers, celebrated the information in an e mail to the Related Press.
“Given at present’s very totally different understanding of how sexual and bodily abuse impacts youngsters — each girls and boys — and the exceptional new proof, we expect resentencing is the suitable consequence,” Gardner reportedly wrote. “The brothers have served greater than 30 years in jail. That’s sufficient.”
The duo are again within the limelight as a result of a Ryan Murphy-created Netflix collection dramatizing their case: “Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story.” Erik criticized the collection in a publish to Fb final month.
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