Thanks to the recent direct intervention of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez are already considering possible resentencing and the possibility of parole after nearly 30 years behind bars for the 1989 murder of their parents.

Now, outgoing President George Gascón is calling on California Governor Gavin Newsom to intervene and get the siblings out of state prison as soon as possible.

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“I write in strong support of the clemency request of Lyle Menendez submitted to your office on October 28, 2024,” the outgoing prosecutor wrote today in a short letter to the governor as a follow-up to a request from attorneys for brothers “Mr. Menendez is currently 56 years old and serving his 34th year in prison at the RJ Donovan Correctional Center,” Gascón added. In a separate letter sent today, the prosecutor said: “I write in strong support of Erik Menendez’s pardon petition submitted to your office on October 28, 2024. Mr. Menendez is currently 54 years old and serving his 34th year from prison to the RJ. Donovan Correctional Institution.

READ THE DA’S CLEMENCY LETTER FOR LYLE MENENDEZ HERE.

The brothers “respectively served 34 years and continued their studies and worked to create new programs to support the rehabilitation of fellow inmates,” Gascón noted in a follow-up statement Wednesday.

Under the Golden State constitution, a governor has nearly unlimited power to grant clemency, which includes sentence commutations and pardons.

To this, the current governor’s office did not respond to Deadline’s inquiry regarding the DA’s letters or what next steps Newsom might take in this once again high-profile case. If we hear from the governor’s office on this matter, this post will be updated.

READ THE DA’S CLEMENCY LETTER FOR ERIK MENENDEZ HERE.

This latest unconventional move by Gascón comes as a new judge has been appointed in the Menendez brothers’ case. Shortly after taking over the case, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic set a Dec. 11 hearing to consider the siblings’ resentencing very publicly recommended last week by the self-proclaimed divided office of the prosecutor. Additionally, a hearing will be held Nov. 25 on a defense motion for reconsideration filed by defense attorney Mark Geragos, asking that the duo be sentenced on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

If successful, such a conviction would likely see the brothers out of the San Diego facility they are both incarcerated in within days.

The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole during their second trial in 1996 for the brutal gun killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in the late 1980s. The brothers claimed to have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their father, a music director. Although they were admitted at their first trial, which ended in failure, this horrific evidence was basically banned at their second trial.

After exhausting their appeal options, the case of Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56, received renewed attention thanks to new evidence revealed in a Peacock documentary last year, as well as a swarm of TikTok videos and Ryan Murphyit’s well watched in nine parts Netflix series Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez.

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