Evidently, he is once again eligible for parole. Archive blogs
I don’t see a terribly compelling argument against parole, myself. I mean, what’s he going to do? Manson’s an old man who’ll probably live the rest of his life in a constant state of future shock - he’ll been behind bars for decades, after all. And if several decades behind bar can’t deter future Manson-wannabes, it’s hard to say what will.
Sorry but I have to go with, “Hell no!”
Not now, not ever.
He got into his murderous stage after being released from prison, into a world he was not prepared to handle, having spent half his life incarcerated, at that point. I’m not seeing how several more decades of incarceration will have made him any better able to cope. And I don’t think society needs to see what his reaction will be this time.
Just my opinion.
No.
As I recall, Manson primarily made people dead by having other people kill them, so I don’t see what difference his age makes.
Why don’t you think he should be punished any more for what he did?
Manson and his followers already got their reprieve when they were spared from dying gasping and choking in the gas chamber 40 years ago! LET HIM ROT!
Once he’s dead I have no problem with them taking his body out of there and ‘releasing’ him. Until then, however, I’d go with ‘no’.
-XT
It’s not impossible that he could function properly, but neither is there much evidence that it’s likely.
In view of his history, I think he’s a strong candidate for “Guy who should be the very last one released from prison alive.”
I am happy to release Charles Manson as long as he is in rigor mortis at the time.
No. Not now, not ever. Even aside from any question about “whether he’s paid his debt to society” (he hasn’t), Manson is psychotic, psychopathic, homicidal, and thoroughly incapable of living in the free world.
So it would take him a couple of days to learn to direct his followers to kill people by cell phone.
No way in Hell.
No. He shows no signs of remorse, calls himself a political prisoner, and does not cooperate with mental examinations.
This is really a no-brainer, unlike some of his followers. Had he made use of his time in prison to reform, I might think about it briefly (my answer would still likely be “no”), but there is no evidence at all that he has. Quite the contrary.
Well, his health has likely declined, which would make him less effective in all sorts of ways. Perhaps more important, everyone understands what his schtick is, now. And it’s not like parole is unsupervised - if Manson gave signs of starting another criminal organization, he’d go back into prison.
That’s one option. But the point of our parole system is that we don’t necessarily believe that the only appropriate punishment is lifelong incarceration; we check now and then to see whether a given prisoner has been punished appropriately - whether they’ve been rehabilitated, deterred from further offending, and so on. It seems appropriate to weight these questions here, just as in any other case. /shrugs/ And, as mentioned, I’m not convinced Manson still poses a danger to society.
Incarceration for life with the possibility of parole does seem to suggest the possibility that the prisoner might have, in fact, paid his debt before completing a life sentence. Of course, it would be inappropriate to release him if he is still dangerous - do we have evidence of this? (The brutality and evil of the Tate-LaBianca murders, while horrible, are not really evidence that Manson is still dangerous today).
My own view is that it’s nearly always inappropriate to have geriatric patients in prison; it’s so hard for old people to pose a danger to others (though it isn’t impossible, of course) that release is nearly always appropriate. And also economical - consider the staggering costs of end-of-life care for the elderly.
I have always saw Charlie as more of a Facebook guy.
These are fair points, but to play the devil’s advocate (almost literally): What of it? Even if Manson is still an evil bastard, what the hell is he going to do about it? And if all he’s going to do is mutter on the street and be creepy, is preventing this worth the cost and bother of incarceration?
Really? I’d have thought MySpace, or possibly LiveJournal. 
I’ve said in the past that some of his followers should probably be released and shouldn’t be treated differently because their crimes were infamous. But no, Manson himself is an unrepentant lunatic, and he shouldn’t be released to take advantage of the gullible nuts who look up to him as a hero.
Released at 30,000 feet without a parachute, maybe.
That’s a throwback from the liberal 60’s/70’s. The parole system in most states has evolved since then. Today, even states without the death penalty, they would have given him life without parole, the end!
Manson has never, ever shown any signs of remorse or any indication that he could function properly as a productive member of society. And even if he did, so what?
Changing into what you’re suppose to be in the first place doesn’t always negate what you did. What Manson did merits him sitting in prison until he draws his last.
Like I posted before: Manson already got a reprieve. He was spared the death penalty when SCOTUS made a flawed ruling in the 70’s. Why should he also be spared from prison?
Sorry, that’s he’s old now doesn’t make a difference for me.
Having reached a certain age shouldn’t give anyone a pass out of prison.