Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez in 1992. VINCE BUCCI/AFP via Getty Images
The Los Angeles district attorney says he supports this Erik And Lyle Menendez‘s request for clemency from the Governor of California Gavin Newsom.
“I strongly support clemency for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.” George Gascon said Wednesday October 30, in a press release. “They served 34 years respectively, continuing their education and working to establish new programs to support the rehabilitation of fellow inmates.”
The district attorney’s office stated that the brothers’ defense team filed the clemency petition on Monday, October 28. The office has since sent letters of support to Newsom.
According to Newsom official websiteclemency can take the form of “a commutation,” which involves a reduction in sentence, or a “pardon,” which provides “relief from punishment” and restores certain civil rights to people convicted of a crime.
“We have a double track. “I’m doing everything possible, I’ve said publicly, I want them home not only for Thanksgiving, but for Joan’s 93rd and to celebrate with Aunt Terry as well,” Mark Geragosan attorney representing Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56, told TMZ on Tuesday, October 29.
Geragos, 67, referred to Joan VanderMolenthe murder victim’s sister Kitty Menendez (Erik and Lyle’s mother), and Terry Baraitthe murder victim’s sister Jose Menendez (the brothers’ father).
The Menendez brothers were sentenced to life without parole in 1996 for the murders of Kitty and José and remain incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
Gascón requested during a press conference on October 24 that the brothers be indignant amid renewed public interest due to the Netflix limited series Monstersand the documentary The Menendez brothers.
MEGA A decision on Erik and Lyle Menéndez’s murder case came sooner than expected for a number of reasons. Following a renewed interview with Erik, 53, and Lyle’s high-profile case 25 years later, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced on October 4 that a hearing has been held amid new evidence. Gascón said (…)
Geragos also confirmed during his TMZ interview that if and when a criminal case against Erik and Lyle takes place, his legal team will request that their conviction be changed from murder to involuntary manslaughter.
If this is granted, the logic behind this change is that the siblings would be released immediately due to the prison sentence they have already served and the fact that they were both under the age of 26 when the crime occurred.
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Erik and Lyle were convicted of murdering their parents in their Beverly Hills, California, home in 1989, when the brothers were 18 and 21, respectively.
During Gascón’s announcement on October 24, he said: “They have been in prison for almost 35 years. I believe they have paid their debt to society.”
Gascón said he believed they are “safe to be integrated into society.”