The Menendez brothers are one step closer to seeing life outside prison walls as they face the next hurdle, a parole board hearing, in their bid for release from the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents in Beverly Hills.
Criminal defense attorney Sam Bassett of Minton, Bassett, Flores & Carsey in Austin, Texas, told Fox News Digital that the spotlight will now shift to the state Parole Board and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“There is no doubt that Newsom is doing some political calculus on this decision,” he said.
In Bassett’s view, the Parole Board “will consider input from all interested persons, especially the victims’ family members,” weigh the results of the Comprehensive Risk Assessments (CRA), and require the brothers to demonstrate their remorse and acceptance of responsibility.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office, which referred to a news conference Wednesday in which he spoke briefly about the parole process for the Erik and Lyle Menendez and said the process is still unfolding.
“We started a process, as you know, which was intended to help inform the judge about the resentencing of the risk assessment. We thought that would be prudent to do before any resentencing,” he said. “That process has unfolded over the course of the last number of months, and forensic psychologists did an assessment of the risk of each individual brother.”
Certain details of those risk assessments, which have not been made public, were presented during part of Tuesday’s resentencing hearing. The analysis from those reports typically includes what led a person to commit the crime, behavior in prison and the likelihood of recidivism.
Both brothers admitted to killing their parents, Mary “Kitty” and José Menendez, in a gruesome 1989 shotgun massacre inside their Beverly Hills home. Until Tuesday’s resentencing hearing, they had maintained that their actions were self-defense from a lifetime of physical and sexual abuse by their parents.
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Colorado-based criminal defense attorney Eric Faddis outlined the technical hurdles that the Menendez brothers must clear before the Board can begin to review their cases.
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Thanks to the brothers’ recent resentencing under California’s youthful offender law, Erik and Lyle are now eligible for parole “because the crimes were committed before the brothers were 26,” Faddis told Fox News Digital. Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21 when they murdered their parents.
“There are no other eligibility requirements the brothers have to meet,” he said, meaning the parole board “can now consider whether release is appropriate.”
Faddis echoed Bassett’s comments that the board will weigh “the seriousness of the crime,” any prior criminal history, participation in rehabilitation programs, signs of remorse, and the prospect of a stable living situation upon release.
“In this case, all living family members of the victims are in support of release,” he said. “The board may consider any positive contributions to society the brothers made while incarcerated, which include advocating for child sex abuse survivors.”
When asked how the gravity of a double homicide factors into decisions, even decades later, Faddis said: “A double homicide is about as serious as it gets.”
He acknowledged that while the alleged abuse by the father may temper the assessment of the father’s killing, “it does not have the same mitigating effect with respect to the mother’s murder.”
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Faddis predicted that a recent statutory change may benefit the brothers’ bid for release. Under Penal Code § 4801, the Parole Board must now expressly consider “whether the crime resulted from the inmate’s victimization,” he said.
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“Many believe that such prior abuse is given much more weight now than it was in the 1990s, both legally and socially,” he said.
The brothers are set to appear before the Parole Board via video on June 13, 2025, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.
The board will either recommend or veto the brothers’ release. Newsom has the final say over whether they should go free.
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