December 3rd can’t come soon enough, the Menendez Brothers.

Nathan Hochman, the new district attorney in Los Angeles County, will take office the first week after Thanksgiving. As the former U.S. assistant attorney general made clear in his successful campaign against incumbent President George Gascón and since his landslide victory on November 5, one of the first things the new prosecutor will consider as a self-declared “high priority” is treat it His predecessor started on October 24 with a possible revenge against the long-imprisoned brothers and sisters.

“Once I take office on December 3, I look forward to doing the hard work of thoroughly reviewing the facts and law of the Menendez case, including reviewing the confidential prison records, the transcripts of the two trials and the voluminous supporting documents. as spoken to the prosecutors, attorneys and family members of the victims,” Hochman said today.

With a hearing on the criminal case scheduled for December 11, Hochman has not yet revealed where he stands in the high-profile case. However, following the Menendezs’ one-two punch of clemency requests for Gavin Newsom in late October and then-poll Gascón’s “strong support” letters, California’s governor has hit pause — at least for now.

“The Governor respects the role of the District Attorney in ensuring justice and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” Newsom’s office exclaimed Monday in a statement that poured cold water threw on the hopes of the Menendez brothers, a legion of their relatives and other supporters, including Gascón.

“The Governor will await the elected district attorney’s review and analysis of the Menendez case before making any clemency decisions,” Newsom’s office added.

Which is to say, Newsom won’t be doing Gascón Menendez any favors now that the former San Francisco prosecutor is leaving his job in LA just days after Turkey Day.

If Hochman decides that the December 11 criminal case hearing will proceed as scheduled, LA Supreme Court Judge William Ryan could shift the brothers’ sentence to manslaughter instead of first-degree murder, and they could quickly leave prison as a release committee agrees. On the other hand, if neither Hochman or Newsom did anything to hinder or encourage the case, Judge Ryan could also order an entirely new trial for the Menendez brothers.

The brothers’ case, a media sensation during Bill Clinton’s first term, has returned to the headlines in large part because of new evidence of sexual abuse by the boy’s music executive father, revealed in Peacock’s 2023 docuseries . Menendez + Menudo: Boys betrayed and more recently, Ryan Murphy’s true-life nine-part crime drama Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendezwhich launched on Netflix on September 19. Those shows were followed by a Menendez documentary on the Ted Sarando and Greg Peters-run streamer and advocacy for the brothers, including Kim Kardashian and some of the killers’ relatives.

Nearly thirty years after the brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in their second trial in 1996 for the brutal 1989 murder of their parents, the incoming prosecutor has also not stated whether or not he will seek a break on any further steps toward the possible release of 54-year-old Erik Menendez and 56-year-old Lyle Menendez from the state prison near San Diego where they are currently being held.

It is unlikely that Gascón will play a much bigger role in the case in his final days. At this time, the only milestone in the case under his supervision is a status hearing on Nov. 25 at the Van Nuys Courthouse West. A hearing that currently has a ‘hurry up and wait’ atmosphere.