Newsoms death row bombshell could give convicted killers a path to freedom, LA DA warns
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman is warning that Gov.Gavin Newsom’s sweeping decision to spare 548 California death row inmates could eventually allow convicted killers to seek freedom, including more than 100 sentenced in Los Angeles County.In an exclusive interview with the California Post, Hochman pointed to the notorious Menendez brothers, whose high-profile resentencing battle was among the first major cases he inherited after taking office in December 2024, as evidence that life without parole does not always guarantee someone will die behind bars.“The Menendez case is exhibit A to show that that statement is just simply not accurate,” Hochman told The Post, challenging Newsom’s assurance that the condemned prisoners would spend the rest of their lives in prison.Erik and Lyle Menendez faced the death penalty for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents in Beverly Hills but were ultimately sentenced to life without parole in 1996.
Nearly three decades later, a judge reduced their sentences to 50 years to life under California’s resentencing laws, making them eligible for parole because they were under 26 at the time of the killings.Hochman opposed their resentencing after inheriting the case from his predecessor, George Gascón, who had supported reducing their sentences.Now Hochman argues the same uncertainty could eventually confront families of victims whose killers are being spared execution.“When Newsom goes ahead and says, as he did in his announcement, that these individuals, even though they’re no longer on death row, will spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars, he can’t say that with any degree of certitude,” Hochman warned.Newsom announced Thursday that he would commute California’s 548 death sentences to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, extending his yearslong opposition to capital punishment.The governor, who imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019, defended the decision on m...