As the Menendez Brothers Seek Freedom, Will Their Good Behavior in Prison Help?

One day more than 20 years ago, Anerae Brown sat down in the day room of a California prison across from Lyle Menendez, who was in front of a chessboard, playing both sides. It was Lyle’s regular table, where he could be found most days checking the stock tables in The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Brown had exchanged a few words here and there with Lyle in the yard, but life in prison can be highly segregated, and until Lyle waved him over to his table that day, race and class had largely kept them apart.

A rap artist and member of the Crips gang, Mr. Brown was in the first years of a long prison sentence for a gang-related murder. Lyle said he had noticed that Mr. Brown was still keeping company with gang members. “I think that you can do so much more with your influence,” he recalled Lyle saying to him.

Mr. Brown was skeptical, but slowly the message began to sink in. He began participating in anger management classes and a program to assist fellow inmates who used wheelchairs.

And when Mr. Brown was transferred to a different prison several years later, Lyle’s brother, Erik, was there to meet him at the gate. Lyle had written a letter to Erik about Mr. Brown that said, “Treat him as if I showed up.”

Mr. Brown eventually earned early release, in part because of his work with the brothers. Now, their efforts with Mr. Brown and other men may prove instrumental in the brothers’ own bid to walk free.

Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, who were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, have asked a judge to impose a new sentence that would allow them to be released. They have also asked Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to grant them clemency, which would be another path out of prison.

A procedural hearing on the brothers’ bid for resentencing is scheduled for Friday, with more substantive hearings on the issue likely to be held later this month.

Efforts to free the brothers have intensified in recent months, fueled in part by popular shows about them on streaming networks and by social media campaigns powered mostly by people who were not alive when their trials took place.

As the brothers make their case for release, a portrait of their time in prison has emerged through court documents, interviews and statements from officials who have examined their record. It is a story of two siblings who began their incarceration feeling isolated and anxious about their infamy, but who eventually, by immersing themselves in education and taking on leadership roles, came to be regarded as model inmates.

Whether the brothers are released now will turn at least in part on how they have lived their lives in prison and what sort of people they are today. But the gathering efforts to win their release have also raised questions about the role that fame and social class can play in determining who among the thousands of people serving life sentences in California deserves a second chance.

In 2018, Mr. Brown and the two brothers were all at the same prison, the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego. It was a “destination spot” for inmates, Mr. Brown said, because serving time there required a commitment to education and self-help. And it was the first time in the 22 years since their convictions that Lyle and Erik were together.

At that moment, the hard-time policies of the high-crime 1990s were giving way to more flexible approaches that allowed California to start shrinking its prison population, as it was required to do to comply with a directive from the Supreme Court. One new lawopened up early parole opportunities for inmates who were young when they committed their crimes.

Suddenly Mr. Brown, who was 17 at the time of his crime, had hope. The brothers encouraged him, telling him, “You are a poster child for this law.”

He was released later in 2018. Mr. Brown 50, now lives in Kansas City and is continuing his music career.

“The brothers believed that I could be standing where I’m standing, doing what I’m doing right now,” he said. “They believed that about me when I could not perceive it about myself. So I love these men. I mean it. I love them.”

New paths to freedom

Until very recently, the Menendez brothers never had much hope of leaving prison.

On the night of Aug. 20, 1989, the brothers burst into their family’s Beverly Hills mansion carrying pump-action shotguns and killed their parents, who were eating ice cream and watching a James Bond movie. Lyle was 21 and Erik, 18.

Their first trial, in 1993, ended in a mistrial after separate juries each deadlocked. It was one of the first trials to be televised nationally, and it foreshadowed the nation’s obsession with the O.J. Simpson case a year later. The brothers were ridiculed by late-night television hosts for their lavish spending after the murders — the Porsche, the Rolex watches, stays in luxury hotels. And they were mocked for saying they had been driven to kill because they had been sexually abused by their father — a motive that was derisively labeled “the abuse excuse.”

When they were tried a second time, the judge limited testimony about sexual abuse and banned cameras from the courtroom. This time, the brothers were each convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances, making them eligible for life sentences without parole.

Nearly three decades later, it seemed the brothers had exhausted all of their appeals. But their case has garnered renewed interest and momentum, especially over the last 24 months. A hugely popular docudrama and a documentary on Netflix have helped spawn an advocacy campaign by people who have been moved by the brothers’ story. Societal attitudes about childhood sexual abuse have evolved, and it is now more widely understood that the abuse can cause lasting trauma. As a result, the brothers now seem as close as ever to freedom.

Citing newly unearthed evidence supporting their claims that they were molested, the brothers requested a new trial. But that possibility seems off the table, because the recently elected district attorney of Los Angeles, Nathan J. Hochman, said he opposed a new trial.

That leaves two more likely possible paths to freedom: clemency and resentencing,

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, is weighing their clemency request and has scheduled parole board hearings for Lyle and Erik on June 13.

At the same time, a judge is considering whether to resentence them in a way that allows the possibility of parole, which could make them immediately eligible for release. As many as three hearings to deal with these legal proceedings are expected this month, starting with one on Friday.

That legal effort began last year when Mr. Hochman’s predecessor as district attorney, George Gascón, asked a court to resentence the brothers, declaring, “I believe they have paid their debt to society.”

A number of law enforcement figures disagreed, including several prosecutors within Mr. Gascón’s office, who voiced their objections to his move.

Tom Linehan, a former detective with the Beverly Hills Police Department who worked on the Menendez murders, said in a TMZ television special that was broadcast on Monday that the killings were the most “heinous” he had seen in his career.

“There is nothing they could offer society,” he said of the brothers on the television special. “I would not trust them to be on the outside at all.”

Attempts to reach Mr. Linehan for comment for this article were unsuccessful.

Mr. Gascón lost his bid for re-election, and Mr. Hochman is attempting to withdraw his predecessor’s petition for resentencing, saying that he, too, believed the brothers had not demonstrated “full insight” into their crimes.

Rehabilitation at work

The brothers, who earned college degrees in prison, have approached their rehabilitation with different styles.

Lyle has taken leadership roles in prison, as an emissary between the inmate population and the prison administration. At times, wardens have leaned on Lyle, as in 2007 when officials were attempting to racially integrate housing at Mule Creek State Prison. Lyle went cell to cell, lobbying inmates to cooperate.

Erik has been more “boots on the ground,” running groups that focus on meditation and alternatives to violence, according to Chandrika Kelso, who operates a nonprofit that runs programs in prison and has worked with both brothers for years.

“Erik is kind of an artsy guy,” said Gabe Rosales, who teaches guitar and songwriting to prisoners. “Lyle is more sports-oriented, way more meticulous, and almost like the C.E.O. of a company.”

Over decades in prison, the brothers have rarely been punished. Their disciplinary record is modest, with relatively minor infractions like having a cellphone or tobacco, or refusing to move to a different cell.

By contrast, their prison files are full of praise from prison employees, psychologists, and other inmates.

Victor M. Cortes, a corrections officer at R.J. Donovan, the prison near San Diego, wrote about Lyle, “It is exceedingly rare to encounter an individual who, despite facing a life sentence without the possibility of parole, has dedicated himself to person growth, the betterment of his fellow inmates, and overall stability of the prison environment.”

Fame cuts both ways

When Erik arrived in state prison in 1996 to begin his sentence, his notoriety preceded him, and he was constantly picked on and “bullied violently,” he said on a recent TMZ podcast. It took years before he started engaging meaningfully in programs and helping others.

“I was very alone, afraid and prison was hard for me,” he said.

Lyle, whose trial testimony about being molested was broadcast on national television, discovered that his fame could help others. He said he found solace in his early days in prison from the letters he received from other victims of sexual abuse.

“I received a lot of ridicule in the 90s about it, but also a lot of support, and a lot of victims reaching out, appreciating that — finding their voice through mine,” Lyle said on the same podcast.

Anamaria Baralt, a cousin of Erik and Lyle Menendez, recalled getting a letter from Lyle in the early 2000s. In it, she said, he took responsibility for the hurt he had caused and promised to try to make things right.

“I remember thinking in my head: ‘This is a different person,’” Ms. Baralt said in an interview.

By the time the brothers were reunited at R.J. Donovan in 2018, each was deeply involved in bettering himself, Mr. Brown said.

Their fame has at times given them the ear of prison administrators, according to people who have known the brothers. But any special attention they received could also provoke resentment.

“If you’re somebody else that’s trying to get the ear of the warden, or create an event or something like that, and nobody is listening to you, of course you’re going to be frustrated,” Mr. Rosales said.

The brothers and people around them say that if they are released, they plan to continue running the programs they started inside prison. Still, in the recent podcast, Lyle acknowledged that hope for the future was a relatively new concept for them, and not one he and Erik spend a great deal of time thinking about.

“We’ve been incarcerated 35 years,” Lyle said, “and we’ve sort of developed a peace and a patience that might not make much sense to someone who’s free.”