Kim Kardashian urges California to reconsider Menendez brothers' life sentences

Law school graduate and criminal justice lawyer Kim Kardashian is calling on California authorities to reconsider the life sentences handed down to Eric and Lyle Menendez, two brothers convicted of murdering their parents seven years ago in 1996.

“They are kind, intelligent and honest men,” Kardashian wrote in a personal essay submitted to NBC. The reality star and Schemes founder said the brothers' actions were “inexcusable” but questioned their life sentences without the possibility of parole.

“We shouldn't deny who they are today in their 50s,” Kardashian wrote in her essay. “Physically and psychologically, time changes us, and I doubt anyone would claim to be the same person at 18. I know I'm not!

Kardashian's appeal comes amid renewed interest in the Menendez case. Netflix recently began streaming a true-crime drama from Ryan Murphy titled Monsters: The Lyle and Eric Menendez Story. The streamer is also releasing its own documentary on the subject next week.

“The police should have responded and we would have been arrested,” Eric said in the documentary, according to People magazine. “We had no alibi. We had the remainder of the gunpowder in our hands. Under normal circumstances, they test you for gunpowder residue and we would have been arrested immediately.”

The brothers maintain that they killed their parents in self-defense after enduring a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Attorneys for the men argue that under today's sexual assault burden, they would not be convicted of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles announced Friday that they are reviewing new evidence in the case.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney, George Gascon, said during a news conference that the guilt of Eric Menendez, 53, and his 56-year-old brother, Lyle Menendez, is not in question and that his office is reviewing a case. Disturbing view.

Gascon said the new evidence includes a letter written by Eric Menendez that his attorneys say supports allegations he was sexually abused by his father.

The brothers' attorney, Mark Geragos, said the family always believed they should have been charged with manslaughter instead of murder. But after the jury trial – the brothers were tried separately – ended in a deadlock, jurors in the third trial were not given the option of murder.

The brothers, who were 21 and 18 at the time of the murders, confessed to shooting and killing their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, in 1989. They said they feared their parents were going to kill them to avoid exposure. Long-term sexual abuse by Eric's father.

Prosecutors claimed the murders were motivated by greed and were committed because they feared they would be cut out of their parents' will. After the murders and before being arrested they went on a lavish spending spree, including spending half a million dollars on clothes, Rolex watches and cars, a pattern of behavior detailed in a recent Netflix drama.

In a statement to X posted by his wife, Eric Menendez called the show a “dishonest portrayal” that took them back to a time when prosecutors “built a narrative on a belief system that men don't get sexually assaulted, and It's that men experience rape trauma differently than women.”

Kardashian wrote in her letter that “the media turned the brothers into monsters and sensationalized eye candy — two arrogant, rich kids from Beverly Hills who killed their parents for greed. There was no room for empathy, let alone sympathy.”

Their convictions came shortly after OJ Simpson's acquittal, suggesting Kardashian, like others, had no stomach for a controversial trial outcome at the time. Kardashian's father, Robert Kardashian, was part of Simpson's defense team and cited him as an inspiration to study law.

Kardashian's commitment to criminal justice reform has helped commute the sentences of several inmates. He was involved in petitioning Donald Trump to sign the 2018 bipartisan First Steps Act, designed to reduce excessive sentencing and promote rehabilitation in the federal prison system.

The brothers, he writes, “were robbed of their childhoods by their parents, then stripped of any chance of freedom by a criminal justice system eager to punish without considering context or understanding 'why' and without considering whether the punishment .According to the crime, Eric and Lyle were condemned before the trial began”.

“I spent time with Lyle and Eric; They are not monsters,” he added. “They are kind, intelligent and honest men.”