L.A. D.A. says the Menendez brothers aren't getting a new trial

William Hughes

Feb. 21, 2025, 7:44 p.m.

Recently elected Los Angeles district attorney Nathan Hochman has made it clear that Erik and Lyle Menendez will not be getting a new trial. Per Deadline, Hochman gave a press conference today accusing the two brothers of creating “a continuum of lies and deceit and fabricating stories,” stating that a letter Erik Menendez wrote to a cousin in 1988 in which he talked about his father sexually abusing his older brother was “not credible evidence,” and stating on multiple occasions that sexual abuse “does not justify killing your parents.” So, yeah: No new trial.

The big question now facing the two brothers, who killed their parents in 1989 and were convicted of the murders in 1996, is the matter of resentencing, which could, hypothetically, see the two men’s “life imprisonment without the possibility of parole” judgments altered. (First-degree murder, which both brothers were convicted on, carries a minimum 25-year sentence in California—but since they’re both currently 29 years into a life sentence, a generous resentencing could lead to their immediate release due to time served.) The resentencing hearing was already put into motion by Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascón, via a habeas petition focused on rehabilitation efforts. (As opposed to a separate petition focused on new evidence like the aforementioned letter, which Hochman was shooting down today.) Hochman hasn’t said what he intends to do about that March 20 hearing, although he did make it clear he’s planning an angle, telling press, “We have not made a decision on the resentencing. We are still in the process of not just analyzing trial evidence, but analyzing the rehabilitation and the other evidence that’s required in a resentencing motion.”

It’s hard not to see a political sheen to all of this: Hochman, who ran as an independent after previously campaigning to be California D.A. as a Republican, very pointedly noted in his presser that Governor Gavin Newsom could commute the two men’s sentences if so inclined; meanwhile, Gascón began aggressively addressing this subject back in 2024 when a) a lot of public attention was suddenly being focused on the Menendez case, courtesy of multiple docuseries, as well as Ryan Murphy’s Monsters, and, b), it was becoming clear that Hochman was going to kick his ass in the upcoming election. (Which he did, winning 60 to 40 percent back in November.) The resulting tug-of-war has clearly had as much to do with California electoral politics as the actual merits of the Menendez case—see also news that the two D.A. employees who drafted the resentencing petition for Gascón, Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford, are now suing the D.A.’s office over allegations that the “tough on crime” Hochman retaliated against them for the call for clemency. Which doesn’t bode terribly well for the Menendez family’s hopes about how resentencing will go.