Menendez Brothers: New LA County DA Hochman reveals new plans for case

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles County's incoming district attorney, Nathan Hochman, says that his administration will operate much differently than that of George Gascón.  

He joined us last night on the FOX 11 News at 6 to talk about what he will do starting on day one - including some new plans for the Menendez brothers case.

"What we will do is eliminate extreme, pro-criminal policies. I reject extremes on both ends of the pendulum swing, whether it's Gascón's decarceration policies that said that certain crimes and certain criminals would not be prosecuted no matter the facts in the law, but also mass incarceration policies. Again, an extreme policy that says we don't look at the facts and the law. We just want to put as many people in jail as possible. I come down at the middle and I've called it the hard work middle," Hochman said.

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Hochman said he'll look at each case individually, particularly looking at the defendant's history and the impact to the victim on the potential release of the Menendez brothers. 

Hochman says he has to play catch up to make a determination.

"I've got to actually look at the thousands of pages of confidential prison files that I don't have access to read, thousands of pages of transcripts from months-long trials," he said. "I've got to speak to the prosecutors, law enforcement, the defense victim, family members. And only then will I be in a position to determine if the current resentencing request is just that," he said.

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In fact, Hochman says the only realistic way the brothers would be released before Thanksgiving is if Gov. Gavin Newsom grants them clemency. 

Before Hochman defeated Gascón with more than 60% of the vote in the Nov. 5 election, he discussed Gascón's timing over the case. 

"On October 3rd, when he had the first press conference on the Menendez case of 2024, that's a year and a half after the motion was first filed in May 2023. But why October 3rd? Why that particular date? Well, the front page of the LA. Times had a caption that says, ‘Teen Killer Case haunts Gascón,’ focusing on a 17-year-old woman who had engaged in a double murder because of Gascón's policies of treating her as a juvenile rather adult," he said.

"She only got four years in juvenile hall for that murder, got out and murdered again. So he is, timing-wise, the timing is extraordinarily suspicious. Then on the same day that comes out in the LA Times, he holds a press conference to announce that he's thinking about the Menendez case, literally. He actually wasted the press this time to tell you that he was thinking about a case that he had already had in the office for a year and a half."

RELATED: Erik Menendez's wife Tammi reacts to resentencing recommendation

Hochman will be sworn in on December 2.