Prosecutors will recommend Erik and Lyle Menendez be re-sentenced for the 1989 killings of their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills home, providing the brothers with a chance at freedom after 34 years behind bars.

Los Angeles County district attorny George Gascon announced the decision on Thursday (local time), saying that new evidence in the case merited a review of the brothers’ life sentences.

The two men were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A judge will have the final say over whether they should be re-sentenced and a parole board will have to examine whether they should be released from jail after serving more than 30 years.

“I believe the brothers were subject to a tremendous about of dysfunction in their home and molestation,” Gascon said.

He said that while there was no excuse for murder, “I believe they have paid their debt to society”.

The case centred on the motive of Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, in the murders. Their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez were shot 13 times as they watched TV.

The brothers, who admitted the shootings, said they feared their parents were about to kill them to stop people from finding out that Jose had sexually abused Erik for years.

The brothers’ extended family has pleaded for their release, saying they deserve to be free after decades behind bars. Several family members have said that in today’s world – which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse – the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.

Multiple members of their extended family, including their aunt Joan Andersen VanderMolen, sat in the first few rows of Thursday’s news conference. VanderMolen was Kitty Menendez’s sister and has publicly supported their release.

Mark Geragos, a lawyer for the brothers, was also there.

The Menendez brothers were tried twice for their parents’ murders, with the first trial ending in a hung jury.

At the time, prosecutors contended there was no evidence of molestation, and many details in the brothers’ story of sexual abuse were not permitted in the second trial. The district attorney’s office also said back then that Lyle and Erik were after their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.

Not all Menendez family members support re-sentencing. Lawyers for Milton Andersen, the 90-year-old brother of Kitty Menendez, filed a legal brief asking the court to keep the brothers’ original punishment.

“They shot their mother, Kitty, reloading to ensure her death,” Anderson’s lawyers said on Thursday.

“The evidence remains overwhelmingly clear: the jury’s verdict was just, and the punishment fits the heinous crime.”

The Menendez case has gained traction in recent weeks after Netflix began streaming the true-crime drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

Gascon said his office would file a re-sentencing recommendation in court on Friday. It will contain details and evidence arguing for a lesser sentence.

A potentially divisive hearing is expected within six weeks, where a judge will hear arguments about the brothers’ potential release.

-with AAP