The Menendez Brothers Just Got Resentenced: When Could They Possibly Get Out of Prison?

• Lyle and Erik Menendez were resentenced to 50 years to life in prison on Tuesday May 13, which made them immediately eligible for parole.
• The brothers were serving a life sentence without parole for the 1989 murders of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in their $5 million Beverly Hills home.
• Lyle and Erik have long claimed the murders were committed in self-defense after years of sexual abuse by Jose.

The Menendez brothers, who were resentenced to 50 years to life and are now eligible for parole, may be released from prison in the coming months, lawyers predict.

“I think it’s a matter of months,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Neama Rahmani tells PEOPLE. “It may go a little bit faster, but I think it’ll be a few months.”

Rahmani tells PEOPLE he believes the parole board will recommend the release of Erik and Lyle Menendez who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in their $5 million Beverly Hills home.

The brothers have long said they killed their parents because they feared for their lives, and that Jose had sexually abused them both for years.

“I think the Menendez brothers will be out as early as the summer, if not fall, and have some sort of reality TV show in 2026,” Rahmani says. “It’s going be surreal, but they’re going to be free.”

Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney Shaheen Manshoory also believes the brothers will be released.

“I think given their conduct over the last 35 years, there hasn’t been any major discipline actions against them. I think they’ve been model inmates, and a lot of inmates are speaking on their behalf of what they’ve learned while they were incarcerated with them,” Manshoory tells PEOPLE. “I think that they have a very good chance, and they have a lot of support from the public in general.”

On Tuesday, May 13, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic resentenced the siblings to 50 years to life in prison, which made them immediately eligible for parole because they were younger than 26 at the time of the crime.

According to Manshoory, the parole board hearing must be scheduled within “180 days from the date of re-sentencing.”

At the hearing, the parole board will look at “their disciplinary history, any psychological evaluations, any essential bad acts that they’ve had and other good things that they’ve done, programs that they’ve taken, completed,” Manshoory says.

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The hearings generally don’t last long.

“There’s no rules of evidence,” says Rahmani. “So, it’s not like you’re an examination and cross examination; it’s an informal hearing, where the defendant will speak, victims will speak and so forth, and they’ll make the decision.”

The decision could happen immediately and then it will be up to California Governor Gavin Newsom to either approve or reject the parole board’s recommendation.

“It does go through a review period,” Manshoory says, adding that Governor Newsom will have 120 days to either decide to go along with it, modify it, or deny it. “And if it’s denied, then the parole board will decide whether or not they can have another hearing to ask additional questions, or if they’ll just go with their standard timeframe, which is, they can request another parole hearing in three years.”

 Rahmani doesn’t believe Newsom will block their release.

“It’s politics, it’s popular,” he says. “I would say the vast majority of people support the release of the Menendez Brothers.”

However, before any parole hearing, a clemency hearing is scheduled for the brothers on June 13.

“The Governor can at any time pardon them,” says Rahmani. “Commute their sentence to time served. He can do whatever he wants with a stroke of his pen.”

However, Rahmani doesn’t believe Newsom “will act on it,” he says.

“There’s some political headwinds,” he says. “And probably he doesn’t want to be the one who pardoned or commuted the sentence of the Menendez brothers. I don’t think he’s going to; I think he’s going to want the political cover of the parole board recommendation.”

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.