The Menendez brothers will make a virtual appearance and could speak during a court hearing scheduled to take place next Monday with some members of the media and the public getting a glimpse of the brothers for the first time in decades.
Lyle and Erik Menendez, who are serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents in Beverly Hills, will attend Monday morning’s status hearing remotely from their San Diego prison.
Monday’s status conference will address where the proceedings stand on the resentencing recommendation made by outgoing District Attorney George Gascón.
“I sometimes call (it) housekeeping,” said Mark Geragos, the attorney for the brothers, adding the parties involved will confirm or change the upcoming resentencing hearing date initially set for Dec. 11 as Gascón then had not known he would win reelection. “(We’ll discuss,) ‘Do we meet on the 11th? Do we have enough time? How many witnesses will decide?’”
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While the brothers have the right to appear in the Van Nuys courtroom Monday morning, Geragos said they will attend the hearing via online.
“My office submitted forms so they would not have to be dragged up here (in LA County) at taxpayer expense and back,” the defense attorney explained.
Despite the renewed excitement and interest in the sensational story of the brothers, who used shotguns to kill their own parents as Jose and Kitty Menendez were watching TV in their Beverly Hills mansion in the summer of 1989, largely thanks to TV shows and documentaries, the world will not see and hear from the Menendez brothers. Only a lucky few will.
Some members of the media and those who win a public lottery will get to witness what Lyle and Erik Menendez, who are now in their 50s, look like and sound like.
Sixteen members of the public will be able to attend the hearing in person as the Los Angeles County Superior Court will conduct a public lottery between 9 and 9:30 a.m. Monday in from the Van Nuys Courthouse West after lottery tickets are distributed between 8 and 9 a.m.
There will be no cameras in the courtroom, but sketch artists will provide drawings from the hearing Monday.
The Menendez brothers will have a second court event next Tuesday as prosecutors are expected to reply in front of a judge to habeas the defense attorneys had filed in 2023.
The court had set a deadline for the LA County District Attorney's Office to respond to the brothers’ 2023 petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which claims their convictions and prison sentences are unconstitutional in light of, what they claim, is newly uncovered evidence that the brothers were the victims of childhood sexual abuse by their father, Jose Menendez.
Geragos, who had previously hoped to bring the brothers released by Thanksgiving, said his goal now is to bring them home by Christmas, adding the brothers are “cautiously optimistic” about the possible release.
“The attitude is that it’s been a rollercoaster of emotion,” Geragos said.
When Lyle Menenedez spoke with NBCLA in a 2017 jailhouse interview, he said he tried not to imagine his life outside the prison.
“I think it would be a little torturous to dwell on that,” the elder Menendez brother said, adding he and his brother, Erik, were trying to stay healthy and keep their spirits up. “For me that’s not the form the hope is in. For me, hope is just keeping one’s spirit strong. Believing that your life is not a failed life because it's marked with so much tragedy.”
