Erik Menéndez and Lyle Menéndez’s bid for a retrial was rejected less than one month after the brothers were denied parole.
According to a Tuesday, September 16, report by The New York Times, the convicted murderers’ request was denied by Los Angeles Superior Court’s Judge William C. Ryan one day prior. The rejection followed each of the brothers, who were convicted of murdering their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, in 1989, being denied parole amid two individual August hearings.
The rejected retrial, requested by the brothers’ lawyers in May 2023, cements failed attempts for reduced convictions, with Erik, 57, and Lyle, 54, both currently serving 50 years to life in prison after a May 2025 resentencing made them eligible for parole. (They were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in 1996 following an initial mistrial where jurors could not reach a unanimous decision amid evidence surrounding alleged abuse at the hands of the brothers’ parents.)
Erik and Lyle’s 2023 retrial request included two fresh pieces of evidence that came to light following the release of the Peacock docuseries Menéndez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed. (Public recognition of Erik and Lyle’s conviction grew exponentially when Netflix later released the Ryan Murphy production Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story in October 2024.)
Could Menendez Brothers Be Released From Prison? Appeal Process Explained
One piece of evidence included a letter Erik allegedly wrote at the age of 17 to his cousin Andy Cano that detailed claims of his father sexually abusing him.
The second piece of evidence was a declaration from Roy Rosselló, a member of the musical ground Menudo, who claimed that José sexually abused him in 1983.
In a 16-page letter that detailed his rejection of the retrial request, obtained by The New York Times, Judge Ryan deemed the evidence as not “particularly strong.”
Per the outlet, the rejection included Judge Ryan’s words: “The purported new evidence that slightly corroborates that petitioners were sexually abused, does not negate the finding of premeditation and deliberation and the lying-in-wait special circumstance.”
D.A. Requests Resentencing of Erik and Lyle Menendez in Murder Case
Judge Ryan continued, “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-defense instruction.”
Regarding the letter Erik allegedly wrote to his cousin, Judge Ryan wrote that it “does not additionally inform the jury of petitioners’ alleged fear at the time of the murders,” while the declaration from Rosselló was noted to be “not relevant to the petitioners’ state of mind at the time of the murders.”
The outlet noted that Erik and Lyle are open to “petition to go before the board again after 18 months.”
