Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon threw a Hail Mary on Thursday when he announced he would recommend that the Menendez brothers be re-sentenced for the 1989 murder of their parents as he fights for his political life amid a severe punishment. election campaign, said a legal expert.

Gascon said he would recommend a prison sentence of 50 years to life for each of the brothers — Erik and Joseph “Lyle” Menendez — which would make them immediately eligible for parole under state law because they were at the time of the murders were not yet 26 years old.

“The man who is 30 points behind in his re-election bid threw his Hail Mary today and he is letting the Menendez brothers loose,” criminal defense attorney David Gelman told Fox News Digital. “They are eligible for parole, and he’s going to make sure that happens. It’s a terrible day for the criminal justice system.”

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The Menendez brothers could be released from prison after Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon said he would support a proposal to re-sentencing them for the murder of their parents. (Fox News)

Gascon’s campaign declined to comment on the matter. Fox News Digital has contacted the district attorney’s office.

The Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for the murders of Jose and Mary “Kitty” Menendez in their Beverly Hills mansion. The pair said they were sexually abused by their father, but prosecutors argued that money was the motive behind the killings.

During the killings, the brothers ran out of gun shells and had to go outside to get more to finish off their mother, who investigators said had blood on the bottom of her shoes, indicating she tried to escape after the shooting ended started.

Some critics questioned the timing of Gascon’s announcement as he fights to keep his job amid heavy criticism of his progressive criminal justice policies.

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Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon (Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

“DA George Gascon received the Menendez habeas corpus petition in May 2023 and the request for reconviction in February 2024. Yet he waited until days before the November 5 election, down 30 points in the polls, to write articles about how his failed policies led to even more murders of innocent people, to release his recommendation for re-sentencing,” Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who opposed Gascon, said in a statement.

“By releasing it now, Gascon has cast a shadow on the fairness and impartiality of his decision, leaving Angelenos to wonder whether the decision was correct and whether it was just another desperate political move by a prosecutor who faced a losing campaign that rushed to make headlines through a made-for-TV decision Angelenos and everyone involved deserve better,” he added.

An undated photo of the Menendez family is shown during a panel at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 2. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)

Gascon previously announced that it was investigating the case after new evidence appeared to support the allegations of sexual abuse.

The new evidence includes allegations made public last year that their father also abused Roy Rossello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, in the 1980s, and a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin Andy Cano, who in 2015 surfaced. , years after his death.

Jose Menendez was an RCA records executive at the time of his death.

LETTER AT THE CENTER OF MENENDEZ BROTHERS’ BID FOR FREEDOM QUESTIONED

Pictured is a letter allegedly written by Erik Menendez and sent to his cousin Andy Cano eight months before the murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez. (SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY)

“They have been in prison for almost 35 years,” Gascon said of the brothers on Thursday. “I believe they have paid their debt to society.”

He added that any new conviction must be approved by the court before it becomes official and that a parolee must still sign off on their eventual release. He then praised the brothers’ good behavior during their decades behind bars.

Gascon said there was never any doubt that the brothers committed the murders, but to what extent they should be held accountable.

At the time of the murders, the case attracted a lot of media attention. Attention revived after the release of an eight-part record Netflix true crime drama, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and the documentary “The Menendez Brothers,” also on the streaming platform.

Lyle, left, and Erik, right, are pictured in mugshots from 2023. After years apart, they were moved into the same housing unit at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego in 2018, according to the New York Daily News . (California Department of Corrections)

Gelman noted the list of celebrities who rallied around the couple and called for their freedom.

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“He (Gascon) thinks they should be released because Kim Kardashian, because Rosie O’Donnell, because Netflix makes these guys look like martyrs. They think this is good for Hollywood.

If these two brothers get out, and they will, and they commit another crime, do you know where the blood is?” he added. ‘It will be in the hands of George Gascon. This is a shame.”

Michael Ruiz of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.