Menendez Brothers’ Resentencing Hearing Is Pushed Back to Jan. 30

A hearing scheduled for mid-December was pushed back to Jan. 30 so the judge and the new L.A. district attorney could have time to review filings in the case.

A judge in Los Angeles said on Monday that a hearing on whether to resentence the brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez would be pushed back until early next year to give the court and a newly elected district attorney more time to review the case.

The hearing, which could lead to the brothers being released after decades in prison, was to be held on Dec. 11. It will now take place on Jan. 30.

“I want the new administration to be able to go through the documents and have a say,” Judge Michael Jesic said on Monday morning at a proceeding in a Los Angeles County courtroom.

The Menendez brothers, convicted in 1996 of killing their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills home, had been expected to appear in court on Monday by video. But the hearing, which lasted about 40 minutes, went on without them because of technical problems with the video connection.

The case of the Menendez brothers captured the nation’s attention in the 1990s, the shocking violence and allegations of sexual molestation playing out in one of the wealthiest enclaves of the country.

The brothers’ trial in 1993 was one of the first to be televised to a national audience, and much of the evidence about sexual abuse within the family was introduced. The brothers were tried together but in front of separate juries, each of which deadlocked.

When the brothers were tried a second time, there were no TV cameras in the courtroom, and the judge excluded much of the evidence about the claims that Jose Menendez, Lyle and Erik’s father, had molested his sons. The brothers were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. At the time of the murders, Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18.

The case never quite faded away and has been the subject of a steady stream of documentaries and dramatized treatments. Two recent productions, a docudrama and a documentary released by Netflix, generated renewed attention and led to a recent decision by George Gascón, the outgoing district attorney of Los Angeles County, to recommend that the brothers be resentenced.

Mr. Gascón, who lost his re-election bid this month, has recommended that the sentences be changed to 50 years to life. Because the brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, the reduced sentence would make them immediately eligible for parole.

“I believe that they have paid their debt to society,” Mr. Gascón said late last month.

The brothers are serving their sentences in a state prison near San Diego, where, according to a resentencing petition, they have been model prisoners, running addiction recovery groups and meditation classes and taking college courses.

Until recently, there seemed to be momentum behind the brothers’ efforts to be released. Many relatives have been supportive. And on social media, people have rallied to the brothers’ cause, arguing that attitudes toward sexual abuse have shifted, and that if the brothers were tried today their claims of abuse would lead to a more lenient sentence.

But in early November, Los Angeles voters elected a new district attorney, Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who campaigned on taking a more punitive approach to prosecuting crime. Mr. Hochman has said that he would conduct his own review of the case.

Lawyers for the brothers have asked California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, to consider clemency. Mr. Newsom recently said he would hold off on a decision to allow Mr. Hochman time to consider the case and make his own recommendation.

While the hearing on Monday was largely procedural, it did include testimony from two of the brothers’ aging aunts.

The brothers’ lawyer, Mark Geragos, had asked the judge to allow the women to testify ahead of the hearing because of their old age and concerns about their health. Both women called for their nephews to be released.

“I would like to have them back,” Terry Baralt, Jose Menendez’s older sister, told the court. “Thirty-five years is a long time.”

Ms. Baralt, who testified that she had been close to her brother, pointed to her nephews’ clean records in prison throughout that time. “They could have done a lot of bad things in there, but they didn’t,” she told the court.

The other aunt, Joan VanderMolen, focused on the sexual abuse that she believed her nephews had suffered at the hands of her brother-in-law, and that her sister, Kitty Menendez, apparently did nothing to stop.

“They never had a thought in their life that didn’t include that,” Ms. VanderMolen said. “They never knew if they would be raped.”

Ms. VanderMolen testified that she had been in touch with her nephews over the years but that she traveled to be in court on Monday to make clear that she wished for more.

“I would like to be able to hug them,” said Ms. VanderMolen, who will turn 93 on Tuesday.

Tim Arango and Matt Stevens contributed reporting.