A California judge has rejected a request for a new trial for Erik and Lyle Menendez, shutting down another possible path to freedom for the brothers who have served decades in prison for killing their parents in 1989 at their Beverly Hills mansion.
The ruling Tuesday by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan comes just weeks after the brothers were denied parole. Ryan denied a May 2023 petition seeking a review of their convictions based on new evidence supporting their claims of sexual abuse by their father.
The judge wrote that the new evidence that “slightly corroborates” the allegations that the brothers were sexually abused does not negate the fact that the pair acted with "premeditation and deliberation" when they carried out the killings.
“The evidence alleged here is not so compelling that it would have produced a reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror or supportive of an imperfect self-defence instruction,” the judge wrote.
An email was sent to Mark Geragos, a lawyer for the brothers, seeking comment on the judge's ruling.
A panel of two commissioners on August 22 denied Lyle Menendez parole for three years after a daylong hearing. Commissioners noted the older brother still displayed "anti-social personality traits like deception, minimisation and rule-breaking that lie beneath that positive surface”.
Erik Menendez, who is being held at the same prison in San Diego, was similarly denied parole a day earlier after commissioners determined that his misbehaviour in prison made him still a risk to public safety.
The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for fatally shooting their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion almost exactly 36 years ago on August 20, 1989. While defence attorneys argued that the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers sought a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
A judge reduced their sentences in May, and they became immediately eligible for parole. The parole hearings marked the closest they have come to winning freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago.
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