Menendez Brothers Score Crucial Legal Victory In Decades-long Fight As They Await Potential Freedom

As infamous slayer brothers Erik and Lyle Mendendez hold for their August parole hearing, they person scored a ineligible triumph connected different front, this clip successful nan shape of caller grounds they opportunity could person led to their acquittal. 

The pair, who admitted to sidesplitting their parents, Mary "Kitty" and Jose Menendez, successful a bloody 1989 shotgun massacre wrong their Beverly Hills home, claimed for years that their actions were self-defense stemming from a life of beingness and intersexual abuse.

A July 8 tribunal bid obtained by Fox News Digital will unit nan authorities to explicate why grounds to that effect was barred from their trial. 

Erik Menendez, left, and is relative Lyle, successful beforehand of their Beverly Hills home. They are premier suspects successful their parents murder. (Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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About 8 months earlier nan double-homicide, Erik allegedly wrote a letter to his cousin, Andy Cano, claiming that Jose had sexually abused him and Lyle. 

Further, an affidavit from Roy Rossello, a personnel of a boy set called Menudo, claimed Jose, a grounds executive, raped him erstwhile he was a 14-year-old boy successful 1983 aliases 1984. Rossello made nan declare almost 40 years aft nan alleged rape. 

In March 2023, nan brothers revenge a habeas petition claiming that if they had been allowed to usage nan Cano missive arsenic evidence, and if Rossello's declare had been made earlier and presented astatine their 2nd trial, a assemblage would not person convicted them. 

This operation of 2 booking photos provided by nan California Department of Corrections shows Erik Menendez, left, and Lyle Menendez.  (California Dept. of Corrections via AP, File)

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In an informal consequence to that petition, revenge by Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman's agency successful February of this year, prosecutors denied that nan missive and nan affidavit constituted caller evidence. They said that nan Cano missive was "untimely." They besides said nan Rossello affidavit was "inadmissible, immaterial, and lacks credibility." 

But nan July 8 order, handed down by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan, said that nan missive and nan affidavit represent a prima facie showing that nan brothers are entitled to habeas relief. 

The territory attorney's agency is now taxable to a "show cause" consequence successful nan adjacent 30 days. In their response, Hochman's agency must explicate why nan brothers' habeas alleviation should not beryllium granted. 

Attorney Mark Geragos speaks to reporters astatine nan Menendez brothers' resentencing hearing,  Van Nuys, California, Tuesday, May 13, 2025.  (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

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The brothers sought a caller proceedings successful 2023, but person since shifted their attraction to their ain resentencing, which they were granted successful May. Judge Michael Jesic resentenced nan brothers to 50 years to life pinch nan anticipation of parole. They were antecedently serving life without parole. 

Since, nan brothers person been eagerly awaiting that parole hearing. After it was initially scheduled for June 13, it was postponed until August 21 and 22. 

They person spent 35 years down bars. 

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