What Has to Happen for the Menendez Brothers to Get Out of Prison?

Mar. 15, 2025

Lyle and Erik Menendez.Photo:Nick Ut/AP

Nick Ut/AP

TheMenendez brotherswere tried twice, convicted and sentenced tolife in prison without paroleforfatally shooting their parentswhile they ate berries and cream inside their Beverly Hills mansion in the summer of 1989.

In recent months,LyleandErik Menendez— whose televised 1993 Los Angeles trial  was among the first high profile cases to be broadcast into Americans’s living rooms — havereturned to the spotlightwith a Netflix documentary as well as a dramatized account of their case, both of which look at the story through a modern-day lens. Many argue that the brothers, who say their father sexually abused them for years, took the lives of their parents to save their own.

Where does the case stand now?

In the years that followed, the brothers filed multiple appeals, all of which were denied. They have recently renewed their efforts.

Erik and Lyle Menendez.Ronald L. Soble / Los Angeles Times via Getty

Ronald L. Soble / Los Angeles Times via Getty

Mark Geragos, who represents the brothers, has told PEOPLE he is “cautiously optimistic” that they will be freed.

Reviewing the convictions

In May 2023, the brothersfiled a habeas corpus claimin which they said there were two newly discovered pieces of evidence regarding the sexual abuse they say they endured and asking for a review of that evidence to consider if it would have potentially had any bearing on their previous convictions.

Erik Menendez (left) in 2016 mugshot and Lyle Menendez (right) in 2018 mugshot.California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation/AP

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation/AP

A letter a teenage Erik purportedly wrote in 1988 to a cousin in which he discusses the alleged ongoing molestation at the hands of his father is among the evidence submitted in the filing. “I don’t know I’ll make it through this,” Erik wrote in the letter, just eight months before the murders.

Acknowledging that the brothers “were clearly the murderers,” Gascón said his office had “a moral and an ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us” and to determine if such evidence could have swayed jurors away from first-degree murder convictions.

Cliff Gardner, who also represents the brothers in the habeas corpus filing, tells PEOPLE that if the state court grants their petition, the earlier murder convictions would be vacated.

AP Photo/Nick Ut

But, Gardner says, that does not necessarily mean the brothers would walk free: The state would still have the option to retry the case.

And, he says there’s “no definitive timeline” for the case to be resolved.

Exemplary records in prison

Since their incarceration in 1990, the brothers have hadexemplary disciplinary recordsbehind bars, and Gascón says that prosecutors are also evaluating if the men – who have been in prison longer than they had been free – are rehabilitated.

Such a decision would be made based on their current behavior at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, Calif. where Erik, 53 and Lyle, 56, are now both housed in the same cell block.

If the district attorney’s office believes that the Menendezes have been rehabilitated, then prosecutors can ask the court to resentence the brothers, according to Gascón, who says that they could be sentenced to less time, given a new trial — or “they could walk out.”

“Those are all options. And we will evaluate all of it,” Gascón says, adding: “We’re not sure yet which direction it will go.”

Lyle Menendez with rapper Anerae “X-Raided” Brown at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, Calif., March 15, 2018.K.C. Alfred/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA

K.C. Alfred/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA

Gascón – who is in the midst of a heated re-election campaign – said at the press conference that as district attorney, his office has re-sentenced more than 300 people. Of those re-sentenced, he said only four people had re-offended.

“It’s a very low rate,” he says. “In fact if the recidivism rate for all the crimes we face were to be that low, we would be the safest society in the world — and we’re not.”

Experts weigh in: How likely are the brothers to go free?

PEOPLEpreviously spokewith Los Angeles lawyers about the likelihood that the brothers would be released from prison.

Former Los Angeles County senior deputy district attorney Dmitry Gorin told PEOPLE that the habeas filing was “a long shot.”

March 26, 1990 PEOPLE cover.

“I don’t know how much this new evidence moves the needle,” Gorin told PEOPLE, adding: “This doesn’t really change the evidence in the case. It’s more of the same. It’s horrible evidence. It’s tragic they were abused, but it’s more of the same.”

Defense lawyer Neama Rahmani agreed, calling the petition “a Hail Mary.”

“This isn’t enough, in my opinion,” he told PEOPLE, adding that he thought it “highly unlikely" the brothers would walk free.

source: people.com