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PPAz83

From what it seems from this site over the past few years, this has been a long time coming. Charles Manson has died at the age of 83. https://news.sky.com/story/charles-mansons-life-and-crimes-a-timeline-1…


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gooddog

You can read about what happened with that here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charles-manson-follower-leslie-van-houten-…

 
PPAz83

Wasn’t she granted parole last year? Or am I completely misinformed!?

 
daxi

The problem with Leslie Van Houten is that it is not as simple as her sentence. Yes she was sentenced to death which was then commuted to Life in Prison. [B][U]HOWEVER[/U][/B]......In the mid 70's she was granted a retrial which resulted in a hung Jury & a mistrial, so her sentence should surely be viewed by any impartial & clear thinking person as open to a reasonable level of debate, at the very least. Then add in the fact that at her third trial she was sentenced to two terms of 7 years to life. So presuming that runs concurrently. The minimum sentence a jury gave her after hearing all the evidence was 14 years & thus she has been legally eligible for parole for almost three decades.
Now add in the fact that she challenged her lack of ability to achieve parole & was told by one judge that she was being held illegally. A decision which was over turned at a higher court. But which again shows the need for caution with her case. As it is clearly not as black & white as many other cases.
And then just to add even more confusion to things. Add in two recent parole board decisions which have said very conflicting things. One decision said she had failed to show why someone of her good background & intelligence had done what she had done. The other recommended her for parole, as she had shown that she had changed. But this was turned down by the State Governor.
So looking at her case, it is clear her current position is not as simple as what she did, or if she has changed, or if the courts originally gave her the ability to apply for parole, as it looks like among other factors, political aspirations are involved in her fate too.
Also when looking at her fate I cannot help but feel that giving someone hope & then denying them 21 times fits what any reasonable human would describe as a cruel & unusual punishment. As the evidence seems to clearly show that she has met the same criteria for release as many others have.
And if Clem Grogan of the Manson Family was released over 35 years ago despite being sentenced to death for his part in the atrocities. Then why not her? Is it because she is simply better known than Clem? Or for a good reason?
I am not saying I think she should be released. But that I feel very uncomfortable calling what is happening to her Justice, or reasonable. As an outsider looking in, I see something that appears to have more to do with State Governors winning the next election & about ill informed public opinion than I see something that shows American justice as being impartial & open to debate & introspective self questioning.
Maybe some are right & she is still a risk to the public. But unless the debate becomes less about what happened 50 years ago & more about impartial debate about her now, then reasonable & legitimate questions must hang over if California is acting with integrity towards her.

 
gooddog

^^^ About the ability to commit such a heinous act. There is the complete lack of conscience and then there is the complete lack of conscience brought on by chronic drug use. I have heard that they were taking belladonna and large amounts of LSD regularly. Belladonna can cause a person to experience completely negative and insane things. I think that it becomes very difficult to know how much of it was simply an act of complete lack of conscience or an act brought on by insane drug use that completely alters the normal brain or a combination of the two.

I agree in feeling that if you held a gun to my head and told me to commit a heinous act like that, I would rather die myself than do it but that definitely gets clouded if you're putting mind altering chemicals into your brain on a regular basis. Definitely not an excuse: "I was drunk/on drugs at the time" (I hate that excuse!) but it clouds the black and white of things for sure with a person's defense. Belladonna is some crazy stuff to be feeding your brain. Any normal/sane function goes out the window. I think there is a possibility that your conscience is destroyed, at least temporarily, by such drug use.

 
Metaxu

It is true that murder has no statute of limitations, as do a handful of other types of crimes (rape, rape of a child, treason, etc). But I think that's separate from the question of whether a person can redeem themselves after committing such a crime, and whether it is fair to never give that person a chance to demonstrate that they are indeed changed. In most other countries, murderers are given the opportunity to demonstrate that they have truly reformed, no matter how heinous the crime. Also, homicide, as such, does have different shades of ,,, condemnability (for lack of a better word). There is a world of difference between a 19-year guy who shoots his dead-drunk step-father dead because the step-father was about to beat his mother (once again) into a bloody pulp (a situation I remember from one of my pp's crimes) and a 19-year-old girl participating (actively) in the slow, torturous murder of an 8-months pregnant woman begging for her life. While I can imagine being that 19-year-old young man, I really, honestly cannot imagine driving a knife into a helpless, bound, pregnant woman as she cries out to spare her baby (I'm referring to Sharon Tate, of course) -- not now, not when I was 19 and not when I was 9. I don't see myself falling to peer pressure as a teenager to commit THAT kind of crime. While I certainly fell to peer pressure at 19 to smoke weed and do a line of coke or two, I feel fairly confident that I would not have fallen to peer pressure to kill mother and baby. Which leaves me to think that only a person with a complete lack of conscience is capable of something like that. And, as I've expressed here before, I am not sure that can ever be remedied.

But that is not to say that Leslie Van Houten would be a menace to society if released today. I'm willing to bet she would be a model citizen. I'm also willing to bet that most people privately have that hunch, too. And if that is the case, then why are we keeping her behind bars? She is an old woman at this point. If we are not keeping her in prison in order to make society safer (and we are not), then what is the reason for her continued incarceration?

 
whitediamonds

I wonder how many of us would like to be judged today for what they did in 1969. Or how about sentencing people by what they did in the past rather than the crime they recently committed? People change & if we do not recognise & reward those who try to move on after crimes, what are we saying? As surely positive change is what we as a society want from people before they are released.

I agree no one should be judged for something they did in 1969, exception to that by law is murder.Those who commit murder & sentenced to LWOP may have changed, yet that does not change the crime or bring back the victims. The sentence was already reduced to life.

 
gooddog

How do you separate them? (High profile crime or beloved people from public opinion.) You can't. That's why it is the way it is. You would have had to go to Mars to find someone for a Manson trial that didn't have a bias. The entire fabric of the culture was affected by the crime.

All of them got the death penalty originally and then California briefly overturned the DP in '72, only to reinstate it. They got life in prison instead with some hope. Many saw that as an incredible perk to them. I don't think you can go back and say you've changed and you're sorry, even though you have and you are when your name is intertwined with a case that goes beyond high profile and sets its own precedent. Very few are going to hear the "I've changed" part, most are going to remember the "what you did" part when it turns into something bigger than itself, a legend.

If you're Cosby your legend protects, if you're Van Houten, your legend casts a long and probably inescapable shadow. Not sure how to separate any of it out when it's that big, either way. It's going to affect parole, sentencing, everything...

 
daxi

The problem is far more reaching. Manson and the crimes really changed America. It wasn't "just another" murder case or even that is was a lurid case, it was THE case of century in many ways. It cannot be overstated how these crimes changed America.

And it is for exactly that reason that true justice can only ever be truly achieved when it is free of public opinion. How, what she was involved in, changed America, is nothing to do with what she actually did. No more than the likeability of a murder victim should effect the killers sentence. The law, for justice to be achieved, should [U]ONLY[/U] see the crime & not the public opinion.
Assume two brothers are killed. One is an ex gang member who has a long criminal record, including murder. The other a Doctor who has spent his life working for low or no wages, for causes that helped many many people. Should the law look at if the case is gang related & give a lesser sentence for the ex gang member brother? Or what if the worthy brother had upset some powerful people, by his good work? Should the courts take the view that he caused his own death by upsetting the wrong people & thus make his murder worth a lesser sentence? Or does justice asks for [U]ALL[/U] to be treated equally? And if all are not treated equally & fairly than why are we so surprised when people like Bill Cosby are shown to have used that to thier own advantage? That, I am special attitude, has allowed some to in effect get away with what ever they want for too long.
And the likes of Bill Cosby & Leslie Van Houten are all part of the same problem. Public attitude meaning that what we call justice is about anything but justice. It is about how the public sees someone.

 
gooddog

The problem is far more reaching. Manson and the crimes really changed America. It wasn't "just another" murder case or even that is was a lurid case, it was THE case of century in many ways. It cannot be overstated how these crimes changed America. I think that if you were caught up in that, even if you were young and naive, even if a lot of things: the fact that your name is attached to his name in any way makes it an impossibility that you're going to be treated like any other case because it isn't like any other case.

If you haven't watched any of the several excellent documentaries available on the crime, they show how this crime was unique in many ways and how many different aspects it touches on in people's psyches.

The image of the Manson girls smiling and laughing on their way to court, etc. are burned upon people's minds and it's too bad that drugs and youth created such actions but unfortunately it's those types of things that don't get forgotten or forgiven easily by the public.

The images are burned into a generation's mind as one of the most changing and negative events of the 20th century. Whether it was or not, it was seen as that. The people that followed and committed crimes with Manson are inexorably tied to his name. His name is tied to evil, now and forever, even if he's gone. It casts a long shadow and part of its destruction is that you're not going to get out from under being tied to that name.

I agree that any naive, lost girl could have fallen in with the wrong crowd like that, and that girl is not the same person that grows up and matures but the heinous nature of the crimes and their meaning cast too long of a shadow to override that.

 
daxi

I wonder how many of us would like to be judged today for what they did in 1969. Or how about sentencing people by what they did in the past rather than the crime they recently committed? People change & if we do not recognise & reward those who try to move on after crimes, what are we saying? As surely positive change is what we as a society want from people before they are released.

 
whitediamonds

( OK,True Leslie Van Houten is a PP) But still think she
would of got out of jail years ago if the crime was not famous.

I know she is your pp & you have personal feelings on this. Sadly,the crime was famous for obvious reasons. All of it is so tragically sad.

 
whitediamonds

True, I'm an Atheist but also think it's about time that
Leslie van Houten was free.(she has done her time)

People like writer-director John Waters have said so for years.

Problem there is LWOP, is not about concern of re-offending, old age, having served her time, how well she behaved. It was given due to the crime. Why should she be more entitled than any other inmate with the same circumstances?

 
whitediamonds

Looks like the funds are used for a foundation. Maybe instead of profit, Debra Tate was more interested in controlling Sharon's image rather than letting others profit from it.

Exactly.

 
whitediamonds

Like this Pope today we have in 2018 said:Who am I to judge.

I know your not a religious type.

Your judging Sharon's family for making $$ though. Odd

 
Izzi

I'm quite surprised at the amount of hate and negativity in this thread, in a forum dedicated to establishing connections between incarcerated people and free people. You guys are really good at double standards.
Before anybody says anything: I'm not condoning Manson's criminal activity, just not judging his character or practising wishful thinking towards the very repugnant idea that his victims would be around his dead body.

Some of the posts don't sound like they came from adult people, let alone adults who are engaged in penpalships with felons.

Edit: Manson was quite lucrative, back when he was alive some of his so called artwork was for auction starting at 9 thousand USD, and a vodoo doll he made was a few hundred dollars too. I'm not surprised at all over his celebrity status. Exotic creature.

 
gooddog

Looks like the funds are used for a foundation. Maybe instead of profit, Debra Tate was more interested in controlling Sharon's image rather than letting others profit from it.

 
gooddog

How do you know it's her family doing that? Sharon Tate has a lot of cult status. Her family may not approve of those items at all.

 
Monkey Joe

Obviously a fame chasing nutjob groupie. Exactly the type who carried out his crimes.

 
PPAz83

Ah Yes. Just seen articles on it. A woman too crazy for Charles Manson liking. Go figure!

 
Moonlampje

I have read some time ago (and I can't remember where) that the chick you guys are talking about, was planning on exhibiting his body in a museum after he'd pass away. Apperantly he was not so much for that idea, so he cut all ties with her.

 
PPAz83

Haha. I basically just repeated what you just said. Sorry! I feel like she had a shaved head!? This was only a couple of years ago wasn’t it? I need to know what happened now!

 
PPAz83

Was that the young woman? They were getting married right!?

 
Pisces_Lion

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/24/charles-manson-left-entire-e…

He left his body and estate to his pen pal...

I found weird nobody talks about the other penpal, the young woman who wanted to marry him ... In the past I read some news and also an interview about their "love story" ... where is she now ?

 
PPAz83

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/24/charles-manson-left-entire-e…

He left his body and estate to his pen pal...

 
Teacuplittle

People have a weird fascination with him. I bet this fascination and bribes contributed to his long life.

 
PPAz83

I’m sure he had plenty of fans funding the kind of lifestyle that more than keeps someone alive in there...

 
Sbarnett

@Pisces, Exactly, my thoughts on him to. I hope his victims spirits were waiting at his bedside for his evil soul to leave his body!.

 
gooddog

It's pretty amazing that he made it all the way to die of natural causes considering he was originally sentenced to death.

 
Pisces_Lion

FINALLY !!! If the hell really exists I hope he is there now ... but a monster like him did not deserve to live so long ...