Menendez Brothers Update (Sept. 2026): Parole Hearing Moved Up to March 2027

Thirteen months ago two separate parole panels told Erik and Lyle Menendez no, and attached the standard three-year wait to it. That put their next shot at August 2028.

On Monday the California Board of Parole Hearings moved it. Both brothers are now tentatively set for a parole suitability hearing in March 2027 — roughly seventeen months earlier than the calendar said a week ago. Nobody has been granted anything. What changed is only when the question gets asked again.

What did the board actually decide on Sept. 7?

It granted an advance of the hearing date, nothing more. The March 2027 slot is described as tentative, and the brothers will again appear separately, before separate panels.

The question in front of each panel does not change: does this man currently pose an unreasonable risk to public safety? That is the whole test. It is not a rehearing of 1989.

Their family put out a statement thanking the board. Their attorney, Mark Geragos, has represented them through the resentencing fight.

How can a parole date move up at all?

Proposition 9, the 2008 ballot measure that wrote crime victims' rights into the state constitution, is what makes it possible. The same law that lengthened denial periods also built in a release valve.

Two provisions let the board pull a hearing forward when there is a change in circumstances, or new information suggesting the person may be suitable for parole. The board does not have to explain itself in public when it uses them, and it did not here.

Why are they eligible in the first place?

Because of what happened in May 2025. A judge resentenced both men from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life.

That single change did the work. Both were under 26 when their parents were killed in August 1989, which put them inside California's youth offender parole rules and made them eligible immediately rather than decades out.

They had been convicted in 1996 of the shotgun killings of Jose and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez at the family's Beverly Hills home. The defense case then, as now, rested on years of abuse the brothers said they suffered; prosecutors argued money.

What happened at the 2025 hearings?

Erik went first, on Aug. 21, and was denied. Lyle went the next day and was denied as well.

Prison conduct did most of the damage. Both panels leaned on disciplinary records inside — contraband phones among them — rather than on the crime. In Lyle's case a board psychologist had rated his risk of violence very low, and the panel denied him anyway.

That is the gap the March hearing has to close.

If a panel says yes, do they walk out?

Not that week, and not automatically. A grant starts a review, not a release.

• The decision stays proposed for 120 days while the board's legal office reviews the transcript.
• The governor then has 30 days on any murder case.
• He can let it stand, reverse it, or send it to the full board to be voted on again.

So the realistic distance between a March grant and a front gate is months, and it runs through Sacramento.

Where are they now?

Both are at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, and have been housed at the same prison for several years. Lyle is 58. Erik is 55.

👉 If you only keep one date: March 2027, tentative, and it is a hearing about risk today — not a retrial.

Where does 20/20 fit?

ABC has been on this case longer than most. "Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers — American Sons, American Murderers," a two-hour special from 2017, is the network's fullest telling, built around home video and family interviews.

The case is one of the reasons the three big newsmagazines keep circling back to Beverly Hills. For what the shows are airing right now, our week grid has the current lineup, and the 20/20 archive collects our coverage of the show.

FAQ

Were the Menendez brothers granted parole? No. The board moved their hearing date up to March 2027. Parole itself has not been granted.

When is the Menendez parole hearing? Tentatively March 2027, with each brother heard separately.

Why was the old date August 2028? Both were denied in August 2025 with a three-year setback, which pointed to 2028 before the board advanced it.

More from the case desk

Other dates we are holding: the Delphi appeal on Sept. 21, the Lori Vallow Daybell appeal on Nov. 2, and the Mangione state hearing on Dec. 10. The Kouri Richins fraud trial comes first, on Oct. 9. The full file is in Case Updates, and channels and streaming are in the viewing guide.

Sources

• CBS News Los Angeles — early parole suitability hearing set for March 2027
• ABC7 — brothers granted early hearing after last year's denial
• NBC Los Angeles — family statement on the advanced date
• California Board of Parole Hearings — what happens after a suitability hearing
• CNN — Lyle Menendez denied parole, August 2025

By the True Crime On Air desk · Updated 9:05 a.m. ET