Watch Live: The Menendez brothers’ resentencing decision was announced by the Los Angeles District Attorney

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is expected to announce a possible resentencing recommendation Thursday in the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez, decades after the brothers were sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 1989 murders of their parents in Beverly Hills.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón will hold a press conference at 1:30 p.m. PT (4:30 p.m. ET) to announce his decision, following increasing calls to consider resentencing the brothers, the one They were convicted of first-degree murder in the 1989 killings of their parents, José and Kitty Menendez. Gascón could also recommend a new trial or make no recommendation at all and keep her conviction and sentence unchanged.

Gascon said earlier this month that his office had been investigating the Menendez brothers’ case for about a year. The focus of the case was why the brothers killed their parents.

During their high-profile first trial in 1993, prosecutors argued that the murders were committed out of greed, while defense attorneys said the killings were in self-defense. The brothers admitted to killing their parents, but said they were sexually, emotionally and physically abused by them. Prosecutors said those claims were false. A mistrial was declared and in a second trial what defense attorneys described as abuse evidence was excluded.

In May 2023, the brothers’ appellate attorney, Cliff Gardner, filed a habeas petition to challenge the convictions. The petition cited a Letter from Erik Menendez in 1988 to a cousin, in which he presented his father’s alleged abuse as new evidence.

Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo, has also alleged that he was abused by José Menendez, an executive at RCA Records, where the band had a record deal. Gardner said These circumstances mean that the brothers should have been convicted of first-degree manslaughter, not murder, and received shorter sentences than they would have received when released from prison years ago.

Two current ones high-profile Netflix projects have drawn new attention to the brothers’ case. Gascón said this helped speed up the decision-making process. Some family members have also called out to the brothers be freed. But Kitty Menendez’s brother, Milton Andersen, objected, arguing in a court filing: “The ‘new evidence’ relied upon by Gascón may overturn the murder convictions of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who meticulously planned and committed the cold-blooded murders of both “Their parents cannot legally justify it.”