Lyle Menendez, imprisoned for 35 years with his brother Erik for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home, was denied parole on Friday, a day after the same decision was rendered against his younger sibling.
The ruling was announced by the California department of corrections and rehabilitation, the parent agency of the state board of parole hearings, at the end of an 11-hour-plus proceeding.
Parole commissioners assigned to the case concluded there were signs Menendez, 57, would pose a risk to the public if released from custody, according to details of the hearing provided to news outlets, including Reuters, through a media pool reporter.
Menendez, dressed in blue prison garb, appeared by video from the San Diego lock-up where he is incarcerated.
His brother Erik, 54, was denied parole after a similar 10-hour session on Thursday. The two may apply for parole again within three years.
The brothers were convicted of first degree murder in a trial three decades ago that drew intense national media attention.
They admitted fatally shooting their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, on August 20 1989 with 12-gauge shotguns while the couple watched television in the family room at their home. The siblings have maintained they acted in self-defence, fearing for their lives after years of sexual abuse by their father, a wealthy entertainment industry executive, and emotional abuse by their mother. The brothers were 21 and 18 at the time.
Prosecutors argued the killings were coldly calculated and motivated by greed, namely the brothers' desire to inherit their parents' multimillion-dollar fortune.
Explaining the reasoning behind Friday's ruling, parole commissioner Julie Garland said the “callous” nature of the killings, and Lyle's' efforts to cover up his role in the crime afterwards, remained factors in the denial.
In a tearful closing statement before the board's decision, Menendez said he was “profoundly sorry for who I was, for the harm everyone has endured”.
While his expressions of remorse appeared genuine, “you struggle with antisocial personality traits such as deception, minimisation and rule-breaking that lie beneath the positive surface”, Garland told Menendez at the end of the hearing.
The commissioners focused much of their attention during the proceedings on the brothers' repeated use of contraband cellphones in violation of prison rules.
“Incarcerated people who break rules are more likely to break rules in society,” Garland said.
Several close relatives spoke on the brothers' behalf during the hearings in support of their release for the sake of family healing.
The two have been held in custody since March 1990 and were originally sentenced in July 1996 to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
Their sentences were reduced in May this year to 50 years to life under California's youthful offender statute, which applies to defendants who were under 26 when they committed a crime, making them eligible for parole once they have served half their term.
Reuters
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