There are consequences for our actions. People need to see this in highly publicized cases like this. So no, she should rot in prison - be made an example of.
And while we’re at it, let’s let old Charlie out. Hasn’t he suffered enough?
And David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz is now running a Christian ministry, so he should be let out.
I think people who kill in a rage are more of a risk of repeating the crime, than someone who killed as part of a 60s drug cult, and is under the supervision of a parole officer and possibly lives in some kind of halfway house or group home for the rest of her life.
Me too.
Manson is explicitly and deliberately unrepentant, and also was a recidivist criminal at the time of the Tate-LaBianca murders. He’s already had second and third chances.
It’s not a question of what prison has done to her, but what it has done for her. Cripes, she’s going to have a lot of restrictions on her. One is going to be associations. She’s not going to be allowed near any religious group that isn’t a completely mainstream religion, and even that is going to be monitored pretty closely. If she tests positive for any drug, she’s going back to prison so fast, there will probably be a sonic boom. She probably won’t even be allowed t have OTC drugs without the approval of a doctor. And that’s just to start. The list will be so long, it will probably be barely different from prison for the first few months. She probably won’t even be allowed to take a walk without an escort.
The whole tone of that reminds me of George Canning’s satirical poem on the murderer Mrs Brownrigg from The Antijacobin in the late 1790s. Of course Canning was being fiercely parodic and you weren’t.
It’s a parody of a poem by Robert Southey in praise of the regicide Henry Marten, ridiculing Southey’s belittlement of the execution of a monarch.
I get the same sense from your post, that van Houten’s crime was no big deal. She certainly believed that in her early years of imprisonment, as she nows believes she’s made atonement enough. No, lady, the only real atonement you can make is to die in prison.
Yes, in a sense. And that whole period from birth to 25 is essential development. You can’t miss or damage major elements of this, and not see lifelong consequences.
And there are lifelong consequences for murdering people in order to start a race war because you believe an insane murderer is some kind of god.
She shows the same kind of remorse as anyone stuck in prison, she had no such remorse after the crime and at two trials. She was not a teenager when she committed her crimes, she did not commit those crimes under duress. She willfully killed people, her only motivation was one of hatred and a desire for violence. No factor of time makes her any more eligible for parole now than all the previous times she applied. Let her rot.
I should think that the state, having made that sort of a blunder, should give the innocent person a million dollars or so. The state may require the Prosecutor to repay some of it.
It’s not fair and nobody is claiming it is. You can’t give the exonerated person back the years they lost. You can only give them back the years they have left.
She probably wasn’t considered a “danger to others” prior to July 1969.
The problem isn’t that she’s getting MORE than she deserves, it’s that those others are getting LESS. I think of it as a bonus that she’s served longer because of it being a famous case. I say make more famous cases.
I see she has been given parole.
And the people she murdered are still DEAD.
The world isn’t going to end if she’s released, but at this point I wonder what kind of crime would be necessary to keep someone in prison for life. I don’t believe in punishment for punishment’s sake in general, but there has to be some kind of limit to how much forgiveness a person can receive. She didn’t kill those people because she panicked in the midst of some other crime, this was not a crime of passion, it was carefully planned and she wasn’t part of the plan but asked to go anyway. These were vicious, savage murders, intentionally done that way as part of the insane Helter Skelter plan. Many people have been put to death or died in prison for less severe crimes, and still will. If there is reason for mercy it should be applied to those people first.
Let’s let Willie Horton out of prison too. He didn’t actually kill anyone in Maryland, and he has served 20 years. Isn’t that enough?
I’m not suggesting that. But the decisions made by a 19 year old are going to be significantly poorer than at 25. Our punishments should reflect our uncertainty than a person can behave better over time.
Better that than the principle of justice by karmic retribution, or justice by the whims of the victim’s relatives.
I’m having trouble seeing where you’re going with this line of argument. We don’t lock people up proactively because we can’t predict people’s behaviors. And we should reevaluate whether someone should be locked up if enough time has passed that the person may have changed. Or do you believe that people can’t change?
You’re the one who suggested that her danger to others (or not) was a consideration.
While I don’t think she should’ve been released, Van Houten didn’t participate in the Tate murders.
Right, but what is the relevance of her behavior prior to the murders? Is the argument that since she fooled people into thinking she wasn’t a (potential) murderer then, that she might be fooling people now? Fine, but that requires believing that things like murderousness are static over a person’s lifetime.
To me, none. Her behavior during the murders is sufficient cause to see her permanently removed from free society.
Again, you’re the one suggesting that some other time period is relevant.
Ok, but I was responding to Just Asking Questions, who seemed to suggest that the time period was relevant.
Of course it’s sufficient cause. I have no problem, in general, with murderers being locked up for life. The question is if there’s any continued justification for it in this particular case. The evidence that further imprisonment serves any purpose seems weak.
You don’t think there should be such a thing as punishment? NOT vengeance, but just, “hey, you do this horrible thing, so you earned life in prison?” There are plenty of people who do things thare AREN’T violent, but still end up serving some sort of sentence.
It’s called the penal system, not the rehab system.
Punishment as something disconnected from reality? No–that would be barbaric.
When we punish a child for misbehaving, is it because we think that the child deserves to be harmed in some way to balance what they did wrong? Of course not. Children are punished because we think that it will have a conditioning effect; that they will (consciously or subconsciously) choose to behave well because the alternative is unpleasant.
I think dangerous people should be locked away. And I think there is at least some value in the deterrence effect on others. Perhaps there are additional pragmatic reasons that I’m not thinking of. But punishment as being this thing that you just earn for being bad? That’s hell on Earth, literally.