What we have learned from parole hearings Menendez

Erik and Lyle Menendez were denied parole after appearing before separate advice in California this week.

The brothers spent decades behind bars for killing their wealthy parents in 1989. They claimed self -defense and have long pushed their freedom.

Erik, now 54, attended his audience on Thursday. Friday, Lyle, 57, appeared before another panel. The two audiences were long and held at a distance.

They revealed details on the pair prison time – some of which explain why the panels have denied their release.

In the case of Erik, the parole commissioner Robert Barton, said that the main reason for his refusal was not the murders themselves, but Menendez’s behavior in prison.

Barton rejected the idea that he had been a “model prisoner”. He cited Menendez’s involvement in fighting, drug use and even a tax scam while binding to a gang.

Erik turned out to have hidden prohibited objects, including ingredients to make wine and artistic materials – which he had used to decorate his cell.

Barton said that “Menendez’s institutional misconduct showed a lack of self -awareness”.

During Lyle’s hearing the next day, parole commissioner Julie Garland recognized the prisoner’s “remorse” and the modifications he had made during the imprisonment.

“But despite all these external positives, we see … You still have trouble with anti -social personality traits such as deception, minimization and rupture of rules that are below this positive surface,” said Garland.

Garland said that “imprisoned people who violate the rules” are more likely to break the rules of society.

The two advice highlighted the repeated use of mobile phones by the brothers – who are prohibited in the prisons.

Erik said that he initially thought that the connection with the outside world meant him more for him “than the consequences that I was caught with the phone”, but he said that he had later redesigned this point of view.

The question of phones also appeared in good place in the case of Lyle – he pleaded guilty to a violation of the mobile phone also recently in March of this year.

Although he had a tablet that he was allowed to use, Lyle explained that he had used mobile phones because they gave him more intimacy.

“I would never call myself an incarcerated person model. I would say that I am a good person, that I spent my time helping people,” Lyle told the board of directors, noting that he had done a lot for vulnerable detainees.

Erik, who was 18 at the time of the murders, was asked why he and his brother had shot their parents rather than just leaving the house.

They have long said that murders were a matter of self -defense because their father sexually abused them.

“When I think back to the person I was then and what I believed in the world and my parents, fleeing was inconceivable,” replied Menendez. “Leak meant death.”

He added: “I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably sorry for what I put them.”

Lyle, who is considered the dominant brother, also insisted that more than three decades, he was a different person.

“I am deeply sorry for whom I was … for the evil that everyone endured. I can never compensate for the evil and the sorrow that I have caused everyone in my family.”

When they were asked why they had killed their mother and their father, Erik said that he “considered them one person” after learning that his mother was aware of the abuse.

Lyle said it was his “honest belief” at the time that his parents “were going to kill him”.

Many people, mainly parents, spoke in their support during the hearings.

The aunt of the Teresita brothers Menendez-Baralt, said in tears that she had forgiven the pair for having killed her brother. Explaining that she had cancer at an advanced stadium, she talked about her wish to welcome Erik in her house to “wrap my arms” before it was too late.

Lyle’s cousin, Eileen Cano, who spoke to the two hearings, told the board of directors that she was surprised by the quantity of Lyle that Lyle had reached despite a life in prison.

“While most people go to the overwhelming weight of life in prison, Lyle got up above,” she said.

“Lyle will not be a risk for the community because we, as a family, will keep him responsible,” she continued. “Delaying his release would be useless ..”

Barton recognized support, but said to Erik, “Two things can be true. They can love you and forgive you, and you can always be found unsuitable for conditional release.”