by Vanguard Staff
SACRAMENTO – The California Board of Parole Hearings on Thursday denied parole to Erik Menendez after a lengthy hearing in Sacramento, concluding that he remains an unreasonable risk to public safety more than three decades after the 1989 killings of his parents.
The hearing, which stretched nearly 10 hours, marked the first time Menendez, 54, faced the Parole Board since his 1996 conviction. Appearing by video conference from Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, Menendez reflected on the crime and his time in prison while board members questioned him about his disciplinary record and continued risk.
“This is a tragic case,” Parole Commissioner Robert Barton said after issuing the decision. “I agree that not only two but four people were lost in this family.” Barton cited incidents of contraband cellphones, fights in custody and concerns about Menendez’s overall accountability as factors in the denial. The Board set his next parole hearing in three years, though he could petition for an earlier appearance.
Relatives, friends and advocates testified in favor of his release, describing Menendez as a “model inmate” who had shown remorse and taken steps toward rehabilitation. More than a dozen family members said they had forgiven him and his brother, Lyle, who is scheduled for a separate parole hearing Friday. A spokesperson for the family released a statement afterward saying they were “disappointed” in the outcome but remained “cautiously optimistic” for Lyle.
“Two things can be true,” Barton said. “They can love and forgive you, and you can still be found unsuitable for parole.”
Menendez told the board that the hearing came “36 years and a day after my family realized my parents were dead.” He said, “Today is the day all of my victims learned my parents were dead. So today is the anniversary of their trauma journey.” He also admitted to violating prison rules in the past, including obtaining contraband phones, which he said reflected hopelessness that he would ever be considered for release. “The connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone,” he said.
Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian opposed release, arguing Menendez continued to minimize his role. “When one continues to diminish their responsibility for a crime and continues to make the same false excuses that they’ve made for 30-plus years, one is still that same dangerous person that they were when they shotgunned their parents,” Balian told the Board.
Following the decision, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman issued a statement commending the Board’s ruling. “The California Board of Parole has rightly decided against granting parole to Erik Menendez, and I commend the Board for its thoughtful decision and for weighing all of the evidence and relevant parole factors,” Hochman said. “This ruling does justice for Jose and Kitty Menendez, the victims of the brutal murders carried out by their sons on Aug. 20, 1989.”
Hochman argued that for more than three decades, both brothers advanced a false claim of self-defense to justify the killings and had failed to take full responsibility. He said the ruling “reflects a careful, evidence-based assessment of the facts and parole factors.”
Menendez and his older brother, Lyle, were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole in 1996 after a jury found they shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in the family’s Beverly Hills home. Prosecutors contended the motive was financial, pointing to spending sprees the brothers embarked upon after the killings, including buying luxury cars, a restaurant and hiring a tennis coach.
The brothers have maintained that they acted out of fear after years of abuse at the hands of their father. In recent years, allegations of sexual abuse resurfaced in documentaries, including the Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and the Peacock docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed.
During Thursday’s hearing, Menendez again described his fear of abuse and his belief that his mother knew but did not intervene. “Step by step, my mom had shown she was united with my dad,” he told the Board. “On that night I saw them as one person. Had she not been in the room, maybe it would have been different.”
Still, Barton said the decision to kill his mother showed “a lack of empathy and reason” and was “devoid of human compassion.”
Erik Menendez remains at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. His next parole hearing is scheduled for 2028.
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So all of the talk about releasing this guy was just much ado about nothing.
Sort of. It’s a multistep process. In order to be considered for release, they had to be resentenced because they were originally given LWOP. That was granted which made them eligible for parole. But parole is not release, it’s a hearing, and the first brother was denied it. The second brother goes today. The first brother will now get a new hearing in 2028. Anyone who thought they were about to be released didn’t appreciate the difficulty of being granted parole by a parole board.
So LWOP is only permanent incarceration until someone in the future yells “incarceration crisis!”.
Kind of like how an urban natural riparian habitat is permanently protected until someone in the future yells “housing crisis!”.
Why believe anything, anymore?
The far-lefties will take it away, haha,
Far-lefties will take it away,
Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha,
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
And I´ll be happy to see
Those nice young men
In their clean white coats
Far-lefties will take it AWAY,
HA HAAAA
I think it’s more accurate to say LWOP is LWOP unless someone is resentenced or has their sentence commuted