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Prosecutors in Los Angeles have announced that the Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik, will get a new legal review of the evidence in their case.
The Menendez brothers’ case was put squarely back in the public eye over the past two weeks thanks to the release of the second season of the Netflix series Monsters which focuses on the 1989 murders of their parents and the brothers’ subsequent 1996 trial.
According to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, the brothers’ lawyers have requested the court vacate their convictions due to new evidence.
That evidence includes testimony by Roy Rossello, a former member of the band Menudo, who has claimed that he had also been molested by the boys’ father Jose Mendenez, as well as a letter written by Erik to his cousin in 1988 talking up about his father’s abuse that was recently discovered.
The Menendez brothers have claimed since their initial trial that they murdered their parents parents after years of sexual abuse and because they feared their parents would kill them.
On Thursday, Kim Kardashian wrote an opinion piece that was published by NBC News advocating for the Menendez brothers’ life sentences to be reduced.
Kardashian claims in her article that Lyle and Erik Menendez “had no chance of a fair trial” due to the judge’s rulings in their second trials (their first trials each resulted in a hung jury).
“Back then, there were limited resources for victims of sexual abuse, particularly for boys,” Kardashian wrote. “There were virtually no systems in place to support survivors, and public awareness of the trauma of male sexual abuse was minimal, often clouded by preconceived judgments and homophobia. Can anyone honestly deny that the justice system would have treated the Menendez sisters more leniently?
“Despite overwhelming family testimony acknowledging the abuse Erik and Lyle suffered, the public remained skeptical. Robbed of their childhoods by their parents, then robbed of any chance of freedom by a criminal justice system eager to punish them without considering the context or understanding the ‘why,’ and without caring about whether the punishment fit the crime, Erik and Lyle were condemned before the trial even began.”
Los Angeles D.A. Gascon said in his press conference on Thursday that while there is little to no doubt that the Menendez brothers killed their parents, questions about whether their sentences are appropriate or not now exist.
“Given today’s very different understanding of how sexual and physical abuse impacts children — both boys and girls — and the remarkable new evidence, we think resentencing is the appropriate result,” Cliff Gardner, an attorney for the brothers, said in an email to the Associated Press. “The brothers have served more than 30 years in prison. That is enough.”