Death Penalty News

A Lincoln County man pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of murder in the killings of his father and uncle, forgoing a trial where he planned to argue that years of childhood sexual abuse by the victims contributed to his actions. Brandon Mullins, 27, of Eubank, Ky., entered the plea in Lincoln Circuit Court as part of an agreement with prosecutors. He will serve 40 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced in April. The bodies of Mullins' father, Dennis “Ed” Mullins, 57, and uncle, Anthony Mullins, 55, were discovered inside a trailer on Sandidge Spur Road in Eubank in what authorities described as a double homicide. Mullins faced additional charges including tampering with physical evidence.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lyle Menendez was denied parole Friday, a day after his younger brother Erik received the same recommendation by a California state board. Their separate hearings this week come nearly 30 years after the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder for the 1989 killings of their parents. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996. But after a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life in May, they immediately became eligible for parole under California law because they were under age 26 when they committed their crimes.

The board said he can next be eligible for parole in three years. Erik Menendez was denied parole during his first-ever parole hearing on Thursday, 36 years and one day after he and his brother killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. Erik Menendez, 54, attended the nearly 10-hour hearing via video from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. The board said he can next be eligible for parole in three years.

LOS ANGELES — A California judge on Tuesday resentenced Erik and Lyle Menendez, making the siblings eligible for parole in the shotgun killings of their parents more than three decades ago. The ruling from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic came after months of delays, opposition from Los Angeles County's new top prosecutor and a series of witnesses who testified during a sometimes emotional hearing Tuesday that Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, had changed for the better and are now "different men," as a cousin, Anamaria Baralt, put it.

Decades after they were sentenced to life without parole for murdering their parents, the Menendez brothers may have a route to freedom. But what is their case, is there new evidence and why has a decision been delayed? The Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989, will soon find out if they can be released from prison. Lyle Menendez, 56, and his 53-year-old brother Erik are serving life in prison without parole for the shotgun murders of their father and mother - Jose and Kitty Menendez.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Monday delayed until January his decision on whether to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion 35 years ago, squashing their family’s hope the brothers would be released and home for the holidays. Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said at the hearing in Los Angeles that he needed time to review 17 boxes of documents and give a new district attorney in Los Angeles County time to weigh in on the case.

More than three decades after Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of the murders of their parents and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the brothers now see a path to their potential release. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón on Friday will recommend that a judge resentence the siblings – a decision that was the culmination of a review that came after defense attorneys said in 2023 they had new evidence pointing to abuse by their father.

The Los Angeles district attorney has released new evidence in the Lyle and Erik Menendez case that could potentially lead to a review of their life sentences for murder. After their first widely publicized trial ended in a mistrial, a jury convicted the Menendez brothers of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, following a second trial in 1996. While they never denied killing their parents, the brothers claimed they acted in self-defense and were lifelong victims of sexual abuse by their father. During the second trial, prosecutors argued the “abuse didn’t happen” and the judge overseeing the case did not allow much of the defense’s evidence of abuse to be presented, according to the brothers’ attorneys.

The convictions of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were jailed more than three decades ago for the murder of their parents in the US, are set to be reviewed. The brothers shot Jose and Kitty Menendez at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989, in what prosecutors said was a plot to inherit their father's fortune. On Thursday, LA County district attorney George Gascon said there was "a moral and an ethical obligation" to review evidence submitted by the brothers last year, which claimed they were sexually abused by their father and acted in self-defence.

Not long after the two brothers had been arrested for gunning down their parents in their multimillion-dollar mansion in Beverly Hills, 21-year-old Lyle Menendez put pen to paper to tell his brother what was on his mind. In a 17-page letter in 1990, Menendez told his teen brother, Erik, that he wanted to stay together. “My greatest fear is that we would not end up in the same prison down the road,” he wrote, according to a 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times. “I think if Dad could give us one piece of advice that night in August, it would be never to abandon each other, no matter what the circumstance.” After years in criminal court, the Menendez brothers were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents and sentenced to life behind bars. The two were sent to the same California processing center, then split up, according to the Times. Lyle was taken to a prison near Tehachapi, and Erik was taken to a prison near Sacramento, 100 miles away. At the time, a spokeswom...