By LISA RICHWINE Reuters
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LOS ANGELES— Lyle and Erik Menendez, who have served 35 years of a life prison term for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home, were ruled eligible for parole by a Los Angeles judge at a re-sentencing hearing on Tuesday.

The Menendez brothers, held in custody since March 1990 and originally sentenced in July 1996 to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, were each handed a new sentence of 50 years to life by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic.

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Now 57 and 54 years of age, the brothers will remain incarcerated while the state parole board and California Governor Gavin Newsom ultimately decide their fate.

As they have for a series of previous hearings, the brothers appeared for Tuesday’s proceeding wearing blue jail garb via live video feed from prison in San Diego.

Jesic called their crime “absolutely horrific” but said it was “amazing” how they had rehabilitated themselves in prison.

“It’s something I’ve never seen before,” he said.

Addressing the court before the judge rendered his decision, both defendants apologized to their families, expressed remorse for the killings and said they took “full responsibility” for their behavior.

“My crime was not just criminal. It was wrong. It was immoral. It was cruel and it was vicious,” said Erik Menendez, who was 18 when he and his older brother opened fire on their parents with 12-gauge shotguns.

“Today, 35 years later, I am deeply ashamed of who I was,” said Lyle Menendez, who was 21 at the time of the murders.

The brothers were re-sentenced under California’s youthful offender statute, which applies to defendants who were under 26 when they committed a crime and makes them immediately eligible for parole once they serve half of their term.

After a first trial ended in a hung jury in 1994, the brothers were found guilty by a second jury in 1996 of first-degree murder for fatally shooting their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, on August 20, 1989, as the couple watched television in the family room of their home.

At trial, the brothers admitted to committing the killings but insisted they did so out of fear that their parents were about to kill them following years of sexual abuse by their father, a wealthy entertainment industry executive, and emotional battering by their mother.