The Menendez -brothers try to disqualify da from case to “get a fair negotiation”

Lyle and Erik Mernendez Submitted a proposal for disqualification of the Los Angeles district lawyer Nathan Hochman from participating in their negotiating hearing, according to court documents obtained by People.

Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, have served 35 years in prison for the murder in 1989 by their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez. After a trial in 1993, they were sentenced in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Since then, they have been struggling for decades to be released from prison and claim self -defense because they feared for their lives after suffering through many years of physical and sexual abuse.

In October 2024, former Los Angeles district lawyer George Glacón moved to reduce the brothers’ punishment to 50 years to life, which would make them immediately entitled to Parole. However, Gascón lost the election in November to Nathan Hochman, who then withdrawn his predecessor’s resistance recommendation.

Months later, in February, California requested GOV. Gavin Newsom “comprehensive risk assessments” reports as a step to reduce their sentences, according to Amount.

Judge Michael Jesic, however, had not examined the reports before April 17, which decided the hearing. The two -day negotiation, scheduled for April 17 and 18, was put on vent to let Jesic read the reports, according to USA today.

The new hearing is scheduled for May 9 and will determine the permissibility of reports.

On April 25, Menendez Brothers Legal Team submitted a proposal to disqualify Hochman from the coming May 9 negotiation.

“Da admits that they have a conflict of interest and claim that they built an ethical wall. But the only people walled are the victims in this case as unanimously want the brothers to be released and home,” said their lawyer, Mark Geragos, in a statement to humans.

“The record shows a conflict that allows the unlikely Erik and Lyle to get a fair hearing negotiation, recall is correct,” the archiving says. During the 160-page archiving, their legal team identified conflicts of interest involving Hochman and the only family member who opposed distance, Kitty Menende’s brother, Milton Andersen. Hochman later appointed Andersen’s lawyer as his head of the Department of Victim Services.

However, the proposal says that apart from Andersen, the family “has shared its consistent view that almost 35 years in prison was sufficient and Erik and Lyle should really be delayed.”

“Erik and Lyle Menendez are entitled to a fair residue process. Jose and Kitty Menendez’s family members – regardless of the position they take to counteract – are all right to a fair judicial process,” says the proposal’s conclusion.

“The public is entitled to a process that seems to be fair. Since the measures here raise” a reasonable opportunity that DA’s office may not exercise its discretionary function in a smooth way “and there is a genuine risk that Erik and Lyle will be” treated unfairly under any part of … The procedure “is required.”

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