September 17, 2025: DA Hochman Statement on Court Denial of Menendez Brothers Habeas Corpus Petition

I commend Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan for his thoughtful and decisive ruling rejecting a new trial for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who remain in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents, José and Kitty Menendez. This ruling closes yet another door in the brothers' long campaign to escape accountability for their actions.

In their 2023 habeas corpus petition, the brothers sought to reopen their case based on two pieces of purportedly new evidence: allegations by a former Menudo member claiming sexual abuse by José Menendez and a letter Erik Menendez purportedly wrote to a cousin prior to the murders describing alleged abuse. The Court correctly concluded that, even taken together, this evidence would not have created reasonable doubt in the mind of even one juror. As Judge Ryan found, the allegedly 'new' evidence does not negate the overwhelming findings of premeditation, deliberation, and lying in wait that supported the Menendez brothers' convictions for first-degree murder.

I have long said 'not never, but not yet' when asked about the possibility of resentencing or parole for the Menendez brothers. That decision rests not on public opinion or campaigns, but on their willingness to fully accept responsibility for their crimes and the pattern of lies they spun to conceal them. To this day, they have not acknowledged their calculated plan to kill their parents, nor their attempts to suborn perjury from friends to bolster their false self-defense narrative - which included fabrications that their father raped Lyle's girlfriend, that their mother was poisoning the family, and that they sought a handgun the day before the murders to protect themselves.

Until the brothers come clean and tell the truth, they will remain imprisoned not only by the walls around them - but by the lies they built themselves.