CNN’s Laura Coates speaks with Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman about why a California parole board denied parole for Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989.

Los Angeles

The Los Angeles District Attorney clarified the reasons behind the parole denial for Eric and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents. The D.A. stated that the decision was based on the brothers' ongoing failure to fully acknowledge their criminal actions, particularly their continued assertion of self-defense, which the D.A. described as a persistent falsehood.

The parole board also considered the brothers' conduct while in prison, including rule violations such as unauthorized cell phone use. The D.A. emphasized that without complete acceptance of responsibility and adherence to rules, it is difficult to trust that the individuals would comply with societal laws if released. The decision does not rule out parole in the future but indicates that the brothers have not yet met the necessary criteria.

Los Angeles D.A. explains why Menendez brothers were denied parole

DA Hockman, this is the result that your office wanted, but what is your message to the family members who wanted Eric and Lyle to be paroled? So my message, and I spoke with those family members, all of them, for over three hours myself. I heard what they said, and what I communicated to the family members is that the issue for parole is not never, but not yet. And the two things I based it on is in part what the parole board itself based it on. The first was the failure of both Eric and Lyle to exhibit full insight into their criminal actions and all the lies they have told. The central lie being the self-defense defense at trial, and that's a lie that they have persisted in for 35 years. That's a lie that where they said, and they actually testified to this, that it was not sexual abuse that led them to kill their parents the night of August 20th, 1989. It was the fact that they said their parents were gonna kill them that night, both their mom and their dad, so they had to kill them first. We showed that that lies by looking at 50,000 pages of trial transcripts and interviewing everyone involved in the case. We said that that is an absolute lie. The Menendez brothers bought shotguns two days before the killings in a different city under fake names. They had a pre-planned alibi where they were gonna see Batman the movie and actually tried to buy tickets for it. They then staged a methodical, mafia-looking type of murder where they shot the daddy in the back of his head, the mom who lied dying on the ground. They reloaded a shotgun, put it up to her cheek and pulled the trigger. They shot the parents through the kneecaps. They then methodically got rid of all the evidence, and then when it came time to call 911, they screamed, someone killed our parents, until they finally admitted it. Well, the admission, at one point, though, yesterday, Eric admitted to one of the criteria. There was no justification for self-defense. Does that admission yesterday change anything in your eyes that move it from not now, but not yet, for parole? Well, again, his admission yesterday was in a very tearful way that he apologized to his own family members for his conduct in murdering his own parents. That was not an admission that the self-defense defense that he is told for over 35 years was an abject lie the entire time. And why specifically, though? I mean, for people who might understand it, why specifically would his admission or either his admission of that particular statement in the way that you'd like it said, why should that move the needle for the parole board? And let me tell you why. And what I use is the example of Governor Newsom's rejection of parole for Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan Sirhan had all the same pro-parole factors as the Menendez brothers. He committed the offense under the age of 25 when he assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. He had been in prison for 54 years. He was in diminished health. He had done every rehab program and education program in the prisons and was considered a model prisoner. The problem with Sirhan Sirhan is that he failed to completely accept responsibility for his crime and all the lies he told afterwards. And that's why I'm focusing on this. Because again, the idea, and by the way, it's not just true for the Menendez brothers, it's true for everybody. Until you have the baseline acceptance for all the things you've done wrong, it's virtually impossible to trust that if we let you out, you're gonna abide by society's laws. And what the parole board also focused on was that while they'd been in prison over the last couple of years, they'd broken the prison rules. You're talking about unauthorized cell phone use you're talking about, and that the idea that they would, one of them is saying, while saying that he had unauthorized cell phone use, but he was not using his tablet because he was afraid that that was gonna be leaked and sold to tabloids and wanted privacy. Does that factor into the same level for you as not admitting that there was no self-defense here? Should those be judged on the same basis? You know, it's part of a continuum of the failure to basically come clean with the truth. I think that's what the parole board really focused on. That if these folks, if these two brothers are going ahead and violating the rules inside the prison in a structured environment, if they keep failing for 30 years to acknowledge the full extent of their crimes, how can we trust them on the outside to abide by the rules? And I think that was what the focus of the parole board was both for Eric and Law, each of these situations.

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