(Los Angeles) A Californian judge rejected the request for a new trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, thus closing another possible path towards the freedom of the brothers who spent decades in prison for the murder of their parents in 1989 in their house of Beverly Hills.
The decision rendered on Monday by judge William C. Ryan of the Los Angeles Superior Court comes only a few weeks after the refusal of the brothers’ parole. Judge Ryan rejected a request from May 2023 requesting the revision of their convictions on the basis of new elements supporting their allegations of sexual abuse committed by their father.
The judge wrote that these new elements, which “corroborate slightly” the allegations of sexual abuse of the brothers, did not deny the fact that the two men acted with “premeditation and deliberation” when they committed the murders.
“The evidence alleged here is not sufficiently convincing to arouse a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror or justify an imperfect investigation in matters of self -defense,” wrote the judge.
An email was sent to Mark Geragos, lawyer for the brothers, in order to obtain his opinion on the judge’s decision.
A panel of two commissioners refused on August 22, the conditional release of Lyle Menendez for three years after a one -day hearing. The commissioners found that the older brother still presented “anti-social personality traits, such as deception, minimization and non-compliance with rules, which hide under this positive appearance”.
Erik Menendez, detained in the same prison in San Diego, had been denied parole the day before, the commissioners having determined that his inappropriate behavior in prison always made a risk to public security.
The brothers were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 for having shot their father, José Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, in their manor by Beverly Hills, almost exactly 36 years ago, August 20, 1989.
If the defense lawyers argued that the brothers had acted in a state of self -defense after years of sexual abuse committed by their father, the prosecutors said they were looking to obtain a heritage of several million dollars.
A judge reduced their sentence in May, and they immediately became eligible for parole. These hearings have marked their closest rapprochement with freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago.
