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    Menendez Brothers Clemency Decision Is on Hold, Newsom Says

    Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said he would hold off deciding whether to grant clemency to Lyle and Erik Menendez until after the incoming Los Angeles County district attorney reviewed the case.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Monday that he would not make a decision on granting clemency to Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home in 1989, until after the incoming district attorney in Los Angeles County conducted his own review of the case.The current district attorney, George Gascón, asked a judge in October to resentence the brothers, who were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Around the same time, the brothers petitioned the governor for clemency, and Mr. Gascón wrote a letter in support of the request.But Mr. Gascón lost his re-election bid this month to Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who vowed to be tougher on crime, and the change in leadership has cast some doubt on whether the resentencing bid will move forward.“The governor respects the role of the district attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” Mr. Newsom’s office said in a statement on Monday. “The governor will defer to the D.A.-elect’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”Mr. Hochman has said publicly that he will conduct his own review of the case after he is sworn into office on Dec. 3, and that he may ask the Los Angeles Superior Court judge overseeing the resentencing petition to delay a hearing scheduled for Dec. 11.“Once I take office on Dec. 3, I look forward to putting in the hard work to thoroughly review the facts and law of the Menendez case, including reviewing the confidential prison files, the transcripts of the two trials and the voluminous exhibits, as well as speaking with the prosecutors, defense attorneys and victim family members,” Mr. Hochman said in a statement on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Los Angeles District Attorney Says He Is Reviewing Menendez Case

    Interest in the Menendez brothers has intensified after the release of a new Netflix drama about the case. A separate documentary is forthcoming.George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney, said on Thursday that his office was reviewing a decades-old case involving the brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home and were sentenced to life in prison.The case in the 1990s was one of the first to draw a daily national audience to a televised criminal trial. By their own testimony, the two young men marched into the den of the family’s mansion one evening with shotguns and fired more than a dozen rounds at their mother and father while the couple sat on the couch.Prosecutors presented the brothers as greedy, coldblooded killers, interested in having unfettered access to their parents’ assets, which were valued at about $14 million. Defense lawyers for the brothers argued that they had been sexually molested for years by their father, and had killed out of fear.Mr. Gascón wouldn’t indicate which way he was leaning, but his remarks indicated that the sex abuse claims are among the aspects his office was reviewing. He said his office was divided over whether the brothers should remain in prison for the rest of their lives.“We have a moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us,” he said.Mr. Gascón’s remarks come in the homestretch of his re-election bid as interest in the Menendez case has intensified after the release of a new Netflix drama about the case. The series, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” has been assailed by Erik Menendez and many other members of the Menendez family as grotesque and riddled with falsehoods.Ryan Murphy, one of the series’s creators, has defended his work in interviews. He told The Hollywood Reporter that there was “room for all points of view” and argued that the brothers should be grateful to him for bringing more attention to the case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More