# Should Leslie Van Houten (Manson Family) Be Paroled? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2006, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824 "2006-06-08T00:44:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/121 "2010-07-07T18:35:27Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > A lot of folks here are talking about how it’s not fair to deny her parole because lesser known offenders are getting paroled. That would make her the victim of an injustice–if you agree that it’s unfair, which I don’t. So it is fair that someone who kills an unknown and/or unwanted person should get parole because there is no whipped-up public outcry? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/122 "2010-07-07T18:41:25Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Sociopaths can’t be redeemed. Forgiveness is neither here nor there. I don’t see how anyone but her victims have a right to forgive her anyway. It seems that [brain scans](http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=37865) of sociopaths show faulty connections within their brain: > [@](#): > > LONDON - Psychopaths who kill and rape have faulty connections between the part of the brain dealing with emotions and that which handles impulses and decision-making, scientists have found. > > In a study of psychopaths who had committed murder, manslaughter, multiple rape, strangulation and false imprisonment, the British scientists found that roads linking the two crucial brain areas had “potholes,” while those of non-psychopaths were in good shape. This has some pretty profound implications. If we can scan convicted criminals brains, we might actually be able to determine which ones are actually capable of feeling empathy and which ones are only “faking it.” What if one day, they figure out how to repair these faulty connections in the brain of a psychopath? Would it still be worthwhile to keep them locked up even after their new selves have empathy levels rivaling the Dalai Lama? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/123 "2010-07-07T18:50:33Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Where is your thread bemoaning their release, then? I didn’t start this thread, and I’m not aware of anyone who has committed similar crimes being paroled. If that happens, and someone starts a thread about it, I’ll be sure to voice my disapproval of it. > [@](#): > > Who here has called them victims? I’ve been seeing a clear implication that they are somehow being treated unfairly. I don’t think it’s possible to treat them unfairly. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/124 "2010-07-07T18:51:41Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Are you suggeting that if Van Houten were released then the Manson Family will have reconvened and that “they” will resume their killing spree? No, I’m saying they’re still individually dangerous. SHE is still dangerous. She’s still a psychopath whether she still associates herself with Manson or not. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/125 "2010-07-07T18:54:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No, I’m saying they’re still individually dangerous. SHE is still dangerous. She’s still a psychopath whether she still associates herself with Manson or not. And, as an outsider without access to her prison, medical or psychological records, you are basing this judgment on…? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/126 "2010-07-07T18:58:54Z")
Her crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/127 "2010-07-07T19:02:34Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Her crimes. Thank you, Dr. the Cynic. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/128 "2010-07-07T19:04:06Z")
If I were a Manson family member, I wold thank my lucky stars every day that I was alive. She got the luckiest break there is–she is alive. She doesn’t deserve any others. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/129 "2010-07-07T19:16:56Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No, I’m saying they’re still individually dangerous. SHE is still dangerous. She’s still a psychopath whether she still associates herself with Manson or not. You don’t have the credentials or the authority to call Van Houten a sociopath or a psychopath- in the first place you’re not a psychiatrist and if you were you haven’t examined her. Psychopath & sociopath are specific diagnoses that are not synonymous with somebody who has committed violent crimes. Manson I’d have no problem believing it of, Joran Van Der Sloot meets all of the criteria, but Van Houten to my knowledge has never been diagnosed. It’s certainly not characteristic behavior of a sociopath to pose as a reformed person for 30+ years so that they can get outside and resume their killing spree, and it’s a defining characterist that sociopaths are not social people- the main interest they have in others is personal gain and power over them. They are also extremely rare, thus it’s a bit strange that several of them all happened to wind up on Spahn Ranch. I have little problem believing she was weak willed and easily led and controlled. NOW, whether somebody who was weak willed enough to commit murder for no better reason than a leader tells her to is a risk when it comes to release is a very valid point, but it doesn’t mean she’s a sociopath. Calling her one is a bit like calling all German soldiers who participated in the Holocaust inhuman monsters- it’s not only not true but it’s more terrifying to me that most of them _weren’t_ homicidal monsters before or after the war. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/130 "2010-07-07T19:26:28Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Take a look at the pictures of her handiwork, then tell me that she should be paroled. > > My opinion: no way. Not now, not ever. In her case the word “penitentiary” is 100% applicable, as it is with the rest of the Manson family. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/131 "2010-07-07T19:26:59Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If I were a Manson family member, I wold thank my lucky stars every day that I was alive. She got the luckiest break there is–she is alive. She doesn’t deserve any others. Well, in some ways she’s had it better than Linda Kasabian, the Manson who wasn’t fed after midnight or whatever and was given immunity for turning state’s evidence. Kasabian is not believed to have actively participated in the murders, though she was present. Her life since the trials has been basically hell: poverty, constant brushes with the law (usually over drug use and possession), losing custody of her kids several times (and at least one of the kids turned out really bad). Van Houten has at least never had to worry about money and she’s had the chance to earn degrees and all that. I don’t have sympathy for Van Houten, and I agree she’s gotten her life and that’s more than she deserved for her crime, but I think it makes a mockery of the parole hearings to keep denying her when a less high profile murderer would have been released years ago. (Caril Fugate wasn’t much less high profile and was released many years ago- admittedly the fact she was a minor worked in her favor, but she was a minor who participated in several terrible murders.) As a gay man what appalls me is that Van Houten married (and divorced) in prison. Tex Watson married in prison and has four kids from conjugal visits. Susan Atkins married _twice_ while in prison, and while she’s famous for saying “I have no mercy for you bitch” as Tate was stabbed she herself got to die while her husband was in the room. These were all completely legally recognized unions performed for people who had been- rightly- on Death Row, for whom there was absolutely no hope they’d ever contribute anything to society and whose incarcerations and trials actually cost millions and millions to the state, yet they were all guaranteed full marital rights as the SCotUS has TWICE upheld the rights of prisoners, regardless of their crimes, to marry. However, the same state in which they all live voted to outlaw all unions by gays. This means that a gay couple that has been together for 50 years or more (such as Del and Phyllis) and productive and not a drain on society but contributing tax-paying members had less rights than convicted mass murderers. Thanks LDS. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/132 "2010-07-07T21:02:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Rosemary LaBianca can’t. She didn’t have an opportunity to change or do anything else in the last thirty-one years. Actually, it’s been 41 years. We’re talking about a 60-year woman incarcerated for a crime committed when she was just 19 years old. She’s been in prison for two-thirds of her life, and virtually all of her adult life. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/133 "2010-07-07T21:25:42Z")
Y’know… it is kind of messed up to have a situation in which for practical purposes the intent is for the sentence to be effectively “life w/o parole”, but since the legislature did not have the foresight to have that be the fallback in case of suspension of the death penalty, the authorities now have to periodically perform a sham parole hearing. Would have been better to have been able to take it off the table to begin with. Has any of the remaining Mansonite lifers (other than Charlie) ever just said, _“hey, let’s not waste each other’s time, thanks for the empty gesture anyway”_? They must KNOW there is a standing policy to never grant them parole. Or is this one of those situations in which the defense lawyer is duty bound to at least go through the motions every time it comes up? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/134 "2010-07-07T21:34:32Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > You don’t have the credentials or the authority to call Van Houten a sociopath or a psychopath. Nor do I need any. Her crimes speak for themselves. Normal people cannot carve up a nine months pregnant woman with a knife for no reason (literally, for NO reason). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/135 "2010-07-07T21:38:35Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Actually, it’s been 41 years. > > We’re talking about a 60-year woman incarcerated for a crime committed when she was just 19 years old. She’s been in prison for two-thirds of her life, and virtually all of her adult life. So what? That’s what you get when you break into people’s houses and butcher them for no reason. I just cannot fathom why anybody thinks any of these people deserve any kind of a break whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![BigBertha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@BigBertha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigBertha)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/136 "2010-07-07T21:57:55Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Nor do I need any. Her crimes speak for themselves. Normal people cannot carve up a nine months pregnant woman with a knife for no reason (literally, for NO reason). I agree, but want to nitpick, Leslie did not do that, she supposedly stabbed an already dead woman. That no way releases her from the horrors of what Tex did, just nitpicking. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/137 "2010-07-07T22:10:41Z")
She was there. She was in on it, she didn’t try to stop it or try to report it afterward. She’s exactly as culpable as the rest of them. Even _going along_ with something like that is beyond the ken of normal human beings. Incidentally. Charlie wasn’t there at _all_, and actually had no direct personal involvement in any of the killings, so even stabbing an already dead body (and we only have her own self-serving account that that’s all she did, by the way) is more than what Manson himself did. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/138 "2010-07-07T22:16:43Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I have little problem believing she was weak willed and easily led and controlled. NOW, whether somebody who was weak willed enough to commit murder for no better reason than a leader tells her to is a risk when it comes to release is a very valid point, but it doesn’t mean she’s a sociopath. I’d also add some hefty doses of LSD in there. Hallucinogenics often get thrown in as an after thought which is odd, to me. They are called ‘mind altering’ for a reason. (And while I know it was a bit off topic, I’m in total agreement with your outrage over prisoners marrying.) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/139 "2010-07-07T22:19:38Z")
I did a lot of LSD. I never butchered anybody. ---
**Author:** ![BigBertha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@BigBertha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigBertha)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824/140 "2010-07-07T22:30:09Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > She was there. She was in on it, she didn’t try to stop it or try to report it afterward. She’s exactly as culpable as the rest of them. Even _going along_ with something like that is beyond the ken of normal human beings. > > Incidentally. Charlie wasn’t there at _all_, and actually had no direct personal involvement in any of the killings, so even stabbing an already dead body (and we only have her own self-serving account that that’s all she did, by the way) is more than what Manson himself did. Actually, Charlie Did go into the LaBianca’s house and tied them up! eta" Charles Watson also claimed Leslie did just that. He should know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-leslie-van-houten-manson-family-be-paroled/359824.md?page=8)