Lyle and Erik Menendez‘s aunt, Terry Baralt, has been rushed to the hospital after being found unresponsive in a Los Angeles hotel room … TMZ has learned.

Our sources tell us Terry — who is 85 and battling colon cancer — has been exhausted, stressed and traumatized in the last year as the entire Menendez family works to get the two brothers released from prison.

It all came to a boiling point Friday when the Menendez brothers appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom for a resentencing hearing. During the tense hearing, the defense team went at it with prosecutors while the Menendez family looked on.

Mark Geragos — the Menendez brothers’ attorney who cohosts TMZ’s “2 Angry Men” podcast — blasted the move as a “dog-and-pony show” … adding prosecutors are just trying to relitigate the original murder case. He later called out the D.A. for not showing any concern for the victims — the family — who he says are “being traumatized by the D.A. for political purposes.”

Terry spoke out for the first time in 35 years about her convicted killer nephews and called them “the boys that I didn’t have.”

Terry said she believes it’s time for them to reenter society, adding … “It’s a whole branch of my family erased. The ones that are gone and the ones that are still paying for it, which were kids.”

The brothers are currently serving life in prison without parole for first-degree murder — though they are scheduled to have a resentencing hearing this week.

Terry said she visits her nephews as frequently as possible, but it’s difficult because of her age and because she lives in New Jersey. Lyle and Erik are in custody at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County.