Calls grow to free Menendez brothers, inspired by Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Who are they?
Ever since Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from prison, online conversation has sparked about the Menendez brothers and the call for them to be set free.
People on TikTok are using the app to compare the two cases and call out the judicial system for the “unfair” sentencing Erik and Lyle Menendez received in 1996.
Poster @Boringgirlbex compared the Blanchard and Menendez cases in a video captioned, “Just thinking out loud here, I think perhaps they deserve another trial or even a resentencing.”
Another user, known as @Shaywilliamsss, compared the abuse in the two cases and calls the situation “unfair,” according to the video that’s garnered more than 1.5 million views as of Jan. 16.
But who are the Menendez brothers and why is their case being compared to the now famous Gypsy Rose Blanchard?
Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2016 for arranging for her boyfriend at the time to kill her mother, following claims of years of abuse. She was released in December.
Growing interest
Erik and Lyle Menendez, two Cuban-American brothers, were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after fatally shooting their parents in their Beverly Hills, California, home in 1989.
Erik, 18, and Lyle, 21, were initially tried separately in court, but neither jury could reach a decision in 1994.
The brothers’ lawyers claimed the two killed their father in self-defense after suffering years of sexual abuse, along with their mother who knew what was happening but didn’t do anything about it, according to ABC News.
The brothers went to trial again, but the judge ruled the sexual abuse claims inadmissible in court, ABC news reported. The men were convicted in 1996.
Court documents were filed last year based on new evidence the Menendez brothers’ lawyers believe corroborate their claims of long-term sexual abuse from their father, according to KABC.
“I think there’s some compelling argument and comparisons that could be made between the two cases,” Lyle and Erik’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, told McClatchy News in a phone interview. “I’ve always had a cautiously optimistic view that we would get somewhere.”
Although the brothers have been incarcerated for almost 30 years, Geragos said the support they’ve received has only increased over the years, especially from the younger generations.
“There were a lot of people who were not alive at the time this happened and who are just now hearing about it,” Geragos said. “It’s clear there’s interest, but I think the interest has only gotten greater now than it was.”
Experts weigh in
“Gypsy Rose got a plea offer from the government,” Erica J. Hashimoto, a professor at Georgetown Law and director of the university’s Appellate Litigation Program, told McClatchy News in a phone interview. “Prosecutors have a lot of power in this situation. The plea agreement Gypsy Rose got was very different than the situation the Menendez brothers were in. It was a death penalty case, and the Menendez brothers were not going to be offered anything,”
Hashimoto said she thinks the jury “understood why she did what she did, even if it wasn’t right.” Whereas, with the brothers, whose shopping spree after their parents were killed, “was not the action you’d expect from someone in that situation.”
Johnathon Simon, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, told McClatchy News over the phone he believes Blanchard’s medical documentation played a big role in her sentencing.
“The mother’s own public documenting of what was going on was, I think, pretty clear to prosecutors and the jury that this is someone who experienced abuse for a horribly long period of time,” Simon said.
Hashimoto believes if the Menendez brothers’ case were to happen in the present day “the outcome may not have been different but the prosecutors would look at the case differently.”
“This happened at a time where people didn’t really understand the effects of sexual child abuse and child abuse more generally,” she said. “It feels like a lot of people think that it’s just not fair. If the Menendez brothers were tried today, prosecutors would have looked more into the abuse allegations, they would have talked to more family members and defense lawyers would have a lot more experts to call on.”
Simon said during the mid-90s there was a “a lot of skepticism about child abuse that would not be there now.”
But Hashimoto said with all the years that have passed since the convictions, even with the new evidence, “these types of motions aren’t impossible to win but really, really tough.”
Simon said “courts will probably hear their new claim,” but at the time of their case, the courts “ruled against them on multiple evidentiary issues. There’s also the chance they get granted clemency.”
TikTok users showed their support and desire for the Menendez brothers’ release, with one person saying, “My heart goes out to them. I really wish they could get out.”
“Those 2 poor guys should be released,” another said.
“Free the Menendez brothers,” one person wrote.
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