Erik and Lyle Menendez can be resentenced for their parents’ murders, judge rules

LOS ANGELES — A California judge ruled Tuesday that Erik and Lyle Menendez can be resentenced, clearing the way for the siblings to receive a lesser penalty for the 1989 shotgun murder of their parents.

The ruling from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic came after months of delays, opposition from Los Angeles County’s new top prosecutor and a series of witnesses who testified during a sometimes emotional hearing Tuesday that Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, had changed for the better and are now “different men,” as a cousin, Anamaria Baralt, put it.

The Menendez brothers are serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for the murder of José and Kitty Menendez on Aug. 20, 1989, at their Beverly Hills home.

Jesic did not immediately provide the terms of their new sentences.

Among those to speak on the brothers’ behalf was a retired judge who described himself as “very pro-law enforcement” and said he’d never before testified for someone convicted of a crime.

Another witness, a rapper who goes by “X-Raided,” said he met the siblings in prison and attributed his release under California’s youthful offender law to them.

“I went to what I call Menendez University,” he said, recalling how they helped him and other inmates learn to express remorse and gain insight into their crimes.

During two trials between 1993 and 1996, the brothers testified that they killed their parents in self-defense after Lyle threatened to expose his father’s alleged abuse of his brother.

Prosecutors described the killings as cold-blooded and financially-motivated.

The first trial ended with a hung jury. They were convicted of first-degree murder after the second.