George Gascón, a champion of criminal justice reform whose rise four years ago as Los Angeles County’s first district attorney signaled a key victory in the movement to elect progressive prosecutors, he lost his bid for re-election.

Among the possible moves Nathan Hochman may make in the coming weeks: Retiring a recommendation from the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office to convict Erik and Lyle Menendez. Hochman, who has not taken a position in the case, said he would review the decision on whether to win the race once he has access to confidential records and files.

Ryan Murphy is polarizing nine part series In the wake of the 1989 murders of José and Kitty Menendez, a documentary and an army of TikTok supporters spurred renewed scrutiny of the trials.

Last month, Gascón announced he would move for a retrial in the decades-old case involving the brothers, who killed their parents in a volley of shotgun blasts in the den of their Beverly Hills mansion. They served 34 years in prison, exhausting all appeals in 2005.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has set a Dec. 11 hearing on whether to recommend that the brothers be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. If approved, the proposal will go to a parole board, which will determine whether they should be released. They could be immediately eligible for release.

Asked at a press conference whether a new prosecutor could overrule his recommendation, Gascón expressed skepticism. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Once it’s filed, it’s filed. It’s up to the court to take it from there.”

Under Gascón, the district attorney’s office also sent letters to Gov. Gavin Newsom in support of clemency — a move the brothers’ attorney told TMZ could see them freed by Thanksgiving by eliminating the sentencing process entirely. In a podcast, Newsom indicated that Murphy’s production team told him before the series debuted that it would trigger renewed scrutiny of the case.

“I met with the team that put the series together about nine months ago and they gave me a warning,” Newsom said. “They said, ‘Watch and see what happens after this series comes out, because it’s going to generate a lot more conversation about whether these guys should be freed or convicted.’ And here we are, quickly not many months later.”

The show was inspired by a TikTok movement that saw users point to new evidence suggesting José Menendez also molested a member of the 1980s boy band Menudo. This was featured in Menendez + Menudo: Betrayed boys Peacock docuseries by Robert Rand, a journalist who also unearthed a letter written by Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano corroborating allegations that he was sexually abused.

With Gascón’s release, Los Angeles County will see more punitive measures to deter crime. Hochman criticized his predecessor’s policies of not prosecuting juveniles for crimes or pursuing gang enhancements, which are additional prison sentences added on top of the underlying crimes involving gangs.

In the months leading up to the election, a narrative emerged that Gascón’s time as prosecutor had facilitated an increase in crime in the region. On the campaign trail, he pointed out that areas surrounding traditional prosecutors, such as Orange and Sacramento counties, saw larger increases in violent crime, which is down in LA this year.

Gascón, the former San Francisco district attorney and police chief who also had a stint as an assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, faced strong odds in the race. Two days before the election, he Marking Hochman with 25 points.