Following a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s tossing of Erik and Lyle Menendez’s bid for a retrial Monday, L.A. DA Nathan Hochman touted in a press conference that “we got it right.”
Hochman held a press conference Tuesday to cover the earlier announcement that the Menendez brothers’ efforts for a retrial had been thwarted. The L.A. DA thanked the tireless efforts of the prosecutors for the work they put in ahead of Monday’s decision.
“Let me thank the prosecutors who spent an enormous amount of time effort research to make sure that we got it right,” Hochman said. “And that was the goal. Let’s put in the hard work to make sure we get all the facts in front of the judge, so that the judge can then make a decision based on the entire record, not just some parts of the record, as certain Netflix documentaries, certain parts of the social media has picked on.”
The ruling to deny the brothers’ petition for a new trial came from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan on Monday morning.
“The court finds that these two pieces of evidence presented here would not have resulted in a hung jury, nor in the conviction of a lesser instructed offense,” Ryan said.
He continued: “Neither piece of newly discover [sic] evidence is particularly strong. The evidence alleged here is not so compelling that it would have produced a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror or supportive of an imperfect self-defense instruction.”
The brothers became eligible for parole in May 2025 when a judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life. By August, both Lyle and Erik were separately denied their request for parole by a California Parole Board panel 24 hours apart. Their retrial efforts have now been similarly dismissed.
The Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 after killing their father Jose and mother Kitty in Aug. 1989. Defense attorneys at the time argued that the brothers acted in self-defense following years of sexual abuse from their father.
“When we looked at both the resentencing issue and ultimately the parole issue, we determined that the Menendez brothers had never come fully clean with the central defense that they had, that they had articulated during trial – the self-defense effects,” Hochman added in the press conference.
The Menendez Brothers’ next parole hearing is in three years.
