Gavin Newsom delays clemency decision for Lyle and Erik Menéndez | Los Angeles

Gavin Newsom said this week that he will delay a decision on clemency for the Menéndez brothers until the new Los Angeles district attorney reviews the case.

George Gascón, the current supervisor, announced late last month that he would recommend brothers Lyle and Erik be resentenced for the murders of their parents in 1989, arguing that they had “paid their debt to society” and wrote to the governor in support of the couple. . The brothers have long said they killed their parents after years of abuse.

Earlier this month, voters ousted the progressive Gascón in favor of Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who had argued that his competitor’s policies amounted to “pro-criminal directives.” The California governor will “delay to the DA-elect’s review and analysis of the Menéndez case before making any clemency decisions,” Newsom’s office said in a statement to the media.

“The governor respects the district attorney’s role in ensuring that justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect (Nathan) Hochman to carry out this responsibility.”

Hochman had criticized Gascón over the timing of his decision in the Menéndez brothers’ case, two weeks before the election, calling it a “desperate political move”.

Erik and Lyle Menéndez were convicted to two consecutive life terms in 1996 when a jury found them guilty of first-degree murder in the murders of their parents, José and Kitty. Lyle, then 21, and Erik, then 18, shot their parents multiple times while they were watching television in their Beverly Hills home in August 1989. Erik is now 53 and Lyle is 56.

Prosecutors claimed they were cold-blooded killers who violently murdered their parents for money, but the brothers said they feared their parents would kill them to cover up years of sexual, psychological and physical abuse.

Family members have corroborated their accounts of abuse and have long advocated for their release. In recent years, the brothers have built a large network of supporters, including high-profile criminal justice advocates such as Kim Kardashian.

Gascón announced a review of the case in October in response to new evidence, including a letter written by Erik before the killings that corroborated his allegations of abuse and a claim by a former member of the band Menudo who said that José Menéndez, a former record company manager, had raped him.

Hochman said in a statement to the media that he looked forward to doing the “hard work to thoroughly review the facts and the law in the Menéndez case.”

Tammi Menéndez, Erik’s wife, described the development as frustrating social media.

“It sounds like this case is being used for political maneuvering rather than focusing on the real issues,” she said.