SAN DIEGO — It could take six months for the California Parole Board to schedule a hearing for the Menendez brothers, assuming a judge first approves their resentencing.
The resentencing hearing in Los Angeles court is expected to be calendared in 30 to 45 days.
Erik Menendez has been housed at Donovan State Prison since 2013. He was reunited with his older brother when Lyle Menendez was transferred to Donovan prison in 2018.
The California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) released new mug shots of Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56, last week. Both photos were taken on October 10.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón recommended resentencing last week for the brothers, who were convicted in the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
It will be up to a judge to decide whether resentencing will take place, reducing the original sentence of life without parole to 50-years-to-life with the possibility of parole.
Then, and only then, would the brothers be eligible for a parole hearing. “The Board of Parole Hearings schedules the hearings and no earlier than six months out as required by notice provisions and other mandates,” according to CDCR.
That means seven to eight months at the earliest for a release date and probably longer.
The brothers are housed in cell block “E”, a special housing unit for well-behaved inmates, at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa.
The Menendez brothers have gotten married and gone to college while in prison. Both brothers earned Associate of Arts degrees in sociology from Southwestern College. Lyle also earned a Bachelor of Arts from University of California, Irvine.
“They're not getting away scot-free," said attorney Eugene Iredale, a San Diego attorney who is not involved in the Menendez case. "Understand, there's been punishment, substantial punishment, meted out,”
Iredale said that because the brothers have spent nearly 35 years in prison, and because there is new evidence suggesting, as boys, the brothers were molested by their father, their chances at parole look good.
“They no longer represent a risk to society and they have been substantially punished for the conduct in which they engaged,” said Iredale.