Are the Menendez Brothers Ready for Parole?

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY (Dr. Wendy Smith) – August 19, 2025

KEY POINTS

• Suitability for parole for juvenile offenders rests on age and circumstances at the time of the crime.
• Facing the trauma of childhood abuse is a necessary part of healing.
• Healing from trauma leads to the capacity for empathy and accountability.
  
  

The Menendez brothers, who have served over 35 years for the murder of their parents, were resentenced and are now eligible for parole. The hearings will take place on August 21 and 22.

Suitability for parole.

The determination of suitability for release on parole is a two-part equation. One part is consideration of the circumstances that led to the crime, including the age and circumstances of the (then) young person at the time of the crime. The second, equally important question, is whether the potential parolees have held themselves accountable for their crime and its disastrous effects on others, and whether they have developed the judgment and ability to anticipate the consequences of their actions that will prevent them from being a danger to the community.

Last year, before their resentencing, the Menendez brothers had applied to Governor Newsom for clemency, and the assessment he requested offers some insight into their development over their decades in prison. The evaluating psychologists found them to be at ‘moderate’ (as distinguished from ‘low’ or ‘high’) risk of committing violence. Both brothers had been found with smuggled cellphones late last year, at a time when they knew that consideration of re-sentencing was a possibility. Both brothers have access to phone calls made from prison phones, but these calls are monitored and limited to fifteen minutes. The infraction is not a serious one–we can all understand the hunger for contact that is private and unlimited—but their decisions to violate rules at a time when they hoped to be found suitable for parole reflect that the intensity of the desire for contact swamped their judgment about the consequences of these actions.

At the same time, Erik works with terminally ill inmates and is involved with meditationand religion. Lyle has served in the inmate government and works on prison reform. Both brothers offer support to others who have experienced childhood sexual abuse. These activities demonstrate some insight into their early experience and a desire to make positive contributions to the community.

Childhood trauma and healing.

During the years I spent researching and writing about this subject for my forthcoming book, “Before Their Crimes: What We’re Misunderstanding About Childhood Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Path to Healing,” I interviewed twenty-nine people who served long sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles. Like many of my interviewees, the brothers were sexually abused repeatedly from an early age.

For those whose violent crimes occur in a context of childhood abuse and trauma, true accountability can only be achieved alongside healing from that trauma. Facing their pain is the avenue to empathy and the understanding of the pain and damage they have inflicted on others through their criminal acts.

Healing and accountability.

The people I spoke with have faced the worst in themselves, their devastating crimes, and the harm they caused. All of them had been paroled or had completed their sentences. Many told me that they were denied parole at their first hearing because they were not yet able to hold themselves accountable for their crimes. It was always a blow to be denied. Yet despite the acute disappointment, they took on the difficult task of working to achieve the self-awareness that was required. Tellingly, they all seemed to know when they had gotten there, and both they and their parole boards could feel it.

Now on the outside, those same people are using the hard-earned lessons from self-reflection and addressing their traumas to contribute to healing in their communities. The circumstances that led them to kill no longer exist—they are not threatened with abuse, they are capable of judgment and adult decision-making. They are not a danger to anyone.

Some believe that those who take a life should remain in prison forever, regardless of age and circumstance. As a society, we have come to recognize, and enshrine in law, that these factors do matter. The Menendez brothers have served enough time to earn a parole hearing. They will now have the opportunity they deserve to show the board what kind of adults they have become. How much healing of their trauma has taken place, and what their capacity for accountability and remorse is today, will be determining factors. The parole board and the governor will have the Solomonic task of weighing the forces that drove their crime and their development over the past three decades against their likelihood of engaging in future violence. They are unlikely to be perfect citizens, yet I also believe they are likely to spend much of their future lives making amends for the harm they caused.

For more information, visit https://wendybsmithphd.net.