The Los Angeles County District Attorney says there’s something he’d like to see Lyle and Erik Menendez admit to before he considers resentencing them for the 1989 murders of their parents.
In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Nathan Hochman said he would consider resentencing the brothers “if they sincerely and unequivocally admit, for the first time in over 30 years, the full range of their criminal activity and all the lies that they have told about it.”
Hochman, 61, spoke with GMA days after he asked a court to withdraw a motion asking for the Menendez brothers to be resentenced. The initial motion was put forward by Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascón. But Hochman, who defeated Gascón in the 2024 election, has taken a different position from his predecessor on the brothers.
Lyle and Erik were both sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for killing their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez with a shotgun seven years earlier. Their highly publicized crimes and life stories have received newfound attention in recent years following a string of true crime documentaries about them on Netflix, Peacock, Discovery and more. The most recent season of Netflix’s Ryan Murphy-directed Monsters series, released last September, also centered around the brothers’ story.
The Menendez brothers have sought resentencing — with support from many family members — for years. They’ve claimed they committed the murders in self-defense because they were sexually abused by their father, Jose, and that Jose threatened to kill them if they told anyone.
Hochman told GMA that Jos’s alleged abuse was never part of their criminal defense in court, arguing that it’s something he can’t use to consider their resentencing.
“There was no additional corroboration of anyone in 12 years — whether it was another adult, a friend, a coach, a teacher — who reported on any recipient information that the sexual abuse occurred during those 12 years. But was there evidence presented at trial? Yes. Was it the defense that the Menendezes used to first-degree murder? Absolutely not,” Hochman told GMA. “That is what we have focused on.”
Nathan Hochman.
David Crane/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty
When Hochman was asked whether he has a “checklist” of things he’d like to see the Menendez brothers do before he reconsiders their case, he stated: “The essence of that checklist is that they’d have to finally admit after 30 years, they killed their parents willfully, deliberately and in premeditated fashion, not because they believed that their parents were going to kill them that night.”
Hochman’s position may be a moot point, however: Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the Menendez brothers will go before a parole board in June, after which he says he will review their case for possible clemency.
