Menendez's fate will be decided by the L.A. district attorney on Thursday

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón has advanced his timeline for deciding the fate of the Menendez brothers.

Gascón announced back in October that his office was reviewing Erik and Lyle Menendez's 2023 habeas corpus petition, which contains new evidence and calls for re-sentencing of the brothers, who are currently on trial for the murders of their parents in 1989 serving a life sentence without parole, José and Kitty Menendez. He had previously set the hearing date for November 29th.

But speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Gascón, who is currently up for re-election, said he would make a decision on resentencing the brothers by the end of this week, citing growing public pressure to release the brothers.

A press conference is now scheduled for Thursday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. in downtown Los Angeles.

“I plan to make a decision by the end of this week,” he had told Jake Tapper, “which is what I promised when we received a lot of inquiries.” By the way, we had been investigating this case for over a year. We had a habeas court date at the end of November, but given the publicity surrounding this case, I tried to make a decision earlier and will do so.”

This announcement follows recent renewed interest in the decades-old case, thanks in large part to the TikTok support movement surrounding Erik and Lyle and Ryan Murphy's hit Netflix drama series. Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez, and the subsequent Netflix documentary, in which the brothers were interviewed together for the first time in decades following their 1996 conviction for first-degree murder. Monster The film quickly reached the top of Netflix's global TV charts and has attracted millions of viewers since its release in late September.

The habeas writ could be the Menendez brothers' last chance since they no longer have an appeal. Gascón said his office was divided over the outcome. “There are actually two different camps in my office,” he told Tapper. “I have a group of people, including some who were involved in the original trial, who insist that they should spend the rest of their lives in prison and that they were not molested. I have other people in my office who actually believe that they have probably been abused and that they deserve some relief.”

Among the newly uncovered evidence that led to the habeas petition is a recovered letter that then-17-year-old Erik wrote to his cousin Andres “Andy Cano” in 1988, eight months before the murders, and was never received until the mid-1990s Language emerged from court cases that supported the brothers' self-defense claims of ongoing abuse at the hands of their father; and an abuse claim against José from new witness Roy Rosselló, a member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, which was managed by José and his RCA Records. Rosselló made the accusation in the April 2023 Peacock docuseries: Menendez + Menudo: Betrayed Boys. Gascón previously shared an image of the handwritten letter on his social media but has since removed the post.

“This is a process that has happened twice. “Originally the jury couldn’t make a decision, so it hung,” Gascón told Tapper. “Then in the second trial a lot of evidence was presented that was presented in the first trial that was not presented in the second trial and they were found guilty. There is no doubt that they murdered their parents.”

Therefore, Gascón said it is the evidence that was never presented that could have changed the outcome, and to examine whether the brothers are rehabilitated prisoners under California law who can safely return to the community.

“Each of these vehicles has to be evaluated by a court and approved by a court, and I'm looking at both,” he said, adding that he believes “implicit bias” about male rape also played a role at the time trials and “may have had an impact on the way the case was presented to the jury.”

Last week, Erik and Lyle's extended family held a press conference asking for Gascón's help in re-examining the case. The brothers' attorney, Mark Geragos, pointed out that Murphy's nine-part series mobilizes publicity for the brothers. “When the Ryan Murphy series came out, it was such a caricature that the pendulum swing – the backlash – created a focus on it,” he said.

This story was originally published on October 23 at 7:52 am