EXCLUSIVE: The Los Angeles County District Legal professional doesn’t assume the Menendez Brothers must be set free of jail and Nathan Hochman actually doesn’t assume their much-delayed resentencing listening to ought to go forward as deliberate on Thursday.
After developing quick final week in entrance of LA Superior Courtroom Decide Micheal Jesic in scuttling a possible reassessment of Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez’s circumstances, the DA’s workplace has now made a brazen political transfer to pressure the fingers of the courts and Governor Gavin Newsom.
Hochman’s group has simply filed a conditional movement to push again tomorrow’s pivotal listening to on this as soon as once more high-profile case till Decide Jesic can get his mitts on the supposedly accomplished danger evaluation report the Governor ordered the parole board on March 4 to work on as part of a clemency petition for the siblings.
That report Newsom needs from the parole board will likely be a part of the fabric illuminating a June 13 listening to the brothers will individually have earlier than the board. Out of that June listening to, Newsom will make his determination to grant clemency or not. Right now’s transfer by the DA’s workplace may serve to each velocity that course of up and kick the entire thing down the street concurrently.
Pushed again a number of instances on account of an incumbent being tossed out of workplace, wildfires and extra, the resentencing listening to that might see the life with out parole punishment the brothers acquired within the Nineteen Nineties for the brutal 1989 shotgun homicide of their mother and father overturned was most not too long ago on the calendar for April 17-18. If the Decide agreed to reexamine the sentence the Menendezs have, the entire matter would then go to the parole board – which is the place it’s anyway – after which to Newsom.
Which conveniently for the bold Hochman, dumps the entire matter on the time period restricted Governor. Heading into Thursday’s seemingly harsh listening to(s) for the DA’s workplace, look what very conveniently turned up
“On April 15, 2025, the Folks have been made conscious that the Parole Board has accomplished its Complete Threat Evaluation Reviews for Erik and Lyle Menendez,” the submitting Wednesday from the DA’s workplace declares. “Though the Folks have been directed to not disclose these studies as a result of Governor’s Govt privilege and for different causes, the Governor’s Workplace has invited the Courtroom to request these paperwork to be used on the resentencing listening to,” they go on to say.
Hitching their wagon to an early 8:30 am PT listening to on Thursday that Menendez relations have sought to get a court docket admonishment of Hochman, the DA’s workplace provides: The Folks request the Courtroom make all affordable efforts to acquire the not too long ago accomplished Complete Threat Assessments from the Governor’s Workplace. If extra time is required to acquire these paperwork, the Folks ask the Courtroom to proceed the resentencing listening to.”
The a long time outdated Menendez case grew to become a shiv of types in Golden State realpolitik since now former DA George Gascón took discover of the massive response the Netflix and Ryan Murphy collection Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story acquired final fall and out of the blue dusted off the matter in the midst of his finally unsuccessful reelection marketing campaign. Known as out for opportunism by Hochman through the race, Gascón ultimately really helpful resentencing for the brothers. That movement in addition to any notion of a fast-tracked clemency from the media savvy Newsom, hit the brakes late final yr with Hochman’s election as the brand new DA sought time to settle in and skim by the information himself.
Promising “that no matter determination is finally made is the best-informed determination doable” to Deadline in December, Hochman got here to the conclusion early this yr the brothers proceed to weave “a continuum of lies and deceit and fabricating tales.” On February 21 he mentioned he didn’t imagine the Menendezs ought to have a brand new trial and on March 10 the D.A. went earlier than the cameras once more to inform the world he was withdrawing the resentencing movement of his predecessor.
Final week noticed that unsuccessful presentation to jettison the entire resentencing proceedings earlier than Decide Jesic by Deputy DA Habib Balian. What additionally got here out of that April 11 session was outrage and authorized motion from a number of the Menendez household over unexpectedly utilized crime scene photographs of the mutilated and murdered physique of José Menendez. Although made public earlier than, the 1989 taking pictures photographs shocked the kinfolk, in addition to the nearly attending siblings. The household mentioned that the entire thing brought about the April 13 hospitalization of 85-year-old Terry Baralt, sister to the brothers’ report government father, who has been accused of relentlessly sexually abusing them and others when he was alive.
First the household advocated the DA’s workplace be faraway from the case due to its insensitivity and doable violation of the Sufferer’s Invoice of Rights, or Marsy’s Legislation. Then on April 14, they filed paperwork within the LASC docket in search of a proper admonishment of the DA’s workplace for his or her “scandalous habits” displaying these “horrific and grotesque images of the 1989 deaths of their kinfolk.”
With the resentencing listening to set for round 9:30 am PT on April 17, the household sought an 8:30 am PT listening to to take care of the misconduct allegations. A listening to the DA’s workplace is clearly excessive jacking now.
In actual fact, with no point out of their very own new submitting, Hochman’s workplace took to social media this night to push their POV on Thursday’s hearings, together with a slick month outdated video
Maybe extra disdainfully, the DA’s workplace is claiming tonight they have been broadsided on Tuesday by information of the finished parole board report and are getting the runaround.
“I used to be additional knowledgeable that the Complete Threat Assessments and clemency listening to are a part of the Governor’s statutorily-authorized clemency investigation course of and are protected underneath the chief privilege in addition to the deliberative course of privilege,” says Deputy DA Balian in a declaration immediately accompanying the movement for doable continence. “I used to be additionally knowledgeable that there are different causes the Folks couldn’t disclose the studies, together with the truth that they could include delicate and guarded data. In sum, the Folks have been directed to keep up the confidentiality of the studies.”
“On the identical day, April 15, 2025, I used to be additionally notified by court docket personnel that the Courtroom was knowledgeable by the Governor’s Workplace that the Complete Threat Assessments have been accomplished and that the Courtroom may request entry to the paperwork in order that the Courtroom may doubtlessly have the danger assessments for its analysis on the upcoming resentencing hearings,” he additional says. Detailing some “doubtlessly conflicting data from the Courtroom,” Balian goes on to say: “Moreover, the Governor’s workplace additionally knowledgeable me that it had knowledgeable the Courtroom that, though the Board’s ultimate danger evaluation conclusions won’t be able to share till the June thirteenth hearings, the Courtroom may request the Governor to ask the Board to make the studies accessible to the Courtroom for its overview previous to the resentencing listening to.”
Menendez household attorneys Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos didn’t reply to request for remark from Deadline on this newest submitting by DA Hochman’s workplace, however they’ll’t be happy.
Thursday’s resentencing listening to was already locked down tighter than most jailhouses due to the large public curiosity within the Menendez case. No matter comes out of tomorrow’s early morning session and if the DA;s workplace will get the continuance they need or not, there are going to be lots of very uncooked feelings and extra filings to return.
