Apparently, she is up for parole again.
My point has always been that if the law says she’s eligible for parole, than she must have the opportunity to earn that parole. To that end:
She’ll be no threat to anyone
She done just about all the training they have available
Her record in prison is spotless or nearly so
She’s been truly remorseful for years
So if she’s not eligible for parole, I could live with that. But if she legally is eligible, and the answer is we don’t give a crap, you’ll die in prison anyway, than that’s just wrong.
Famous people should never be given parole because they’re, well…famous?
Notorious, more like. Imagine the shitstorm in whatever community she moved into. Imagine her trying to get a job. One way or another, she’d be on the taxpayers’ dime. Better to stay in prison.
So it’s not a matter of what is right or wrong-it’s a matter of convenience?
I think that question was answered in thisthread…
Incidentally, she’s coming up on 40 years in prison, more time than any Nazi war criminal (who was not sentenced to death) who faced Nuremberg.
You can read an excerpt on Van Houten from her personal friend John Waters’ latest book here. It’s missing quite a large chunk from the chapter, and it’s hard to read if you’ve just come from a description of her crimes, but he does pose some interesting questions. Why keep pretending she’s ‘up for parole’ when she’s satisfied every condition (not to mention lived on the outside for six months in the 1970s, incident-free) and still can’t get it?
Really? 40 years in jail and complete repentance versus… a Swiss mansion?
Its a bit different than the others, she wasn’t there on the Tate night, nor was she supposedly as enthusiastic as the others.
I guess anyone would be repentant after 40 years.
The world was more innocent back then, nowadays if this had happened, it would be just another murder rampage, its like we’re desensitized.
Has anyone else read her book?
So, you are saying that if my husband tries to kill somebody, I am ultimately also responsible through association? How … biblical.
Unless they are siamese twins, attached at the hip one whack job is not responsible for any body elses crimes, and you should not judge anybody by some other persons actions.
I agree, there has been a fair amount of research done on cult brainwashing, and it can make drastic psychological changes in people - look at the baffling behavior of some of the people in Jonestown. Many were coerced into drinking the poison, but there were a lot of the poor deluded people who believed that they needed to suicide. Look at the other cult suicides that have occurred. What if instead of needing to commit suicide to get onto the spaceship a murder spree was called for? There would be a bunch of dead people right now.
And other murderers seem to get paroled, some in as short as 3 years.
THat is how some people seem to see it.
Are you saying that we should perhaps make a ‘retirement appartment complex’ for people too notorious to put back into the population? Where even more money can can be spent to make people scream about the costs?
What do you ask? If the purpose of jail is to rehabilitate, and if you refuse to release them when they do rehabilitate, then what incentive is there for someone who is notorious to rehabilitate themselves. All they have to look forward to is a tiny cell in general population and nothing more ever. If that was what was facing me, why the fuck would I want to do anything to change if I am not going to be able to get released. If the word chance of parole is in there, then make an honest judgement on if the rehab has occurred and release the person, otherwise tell them upfront that they are fucked forever and not to bother with rehabilitation.
Van Houten isn’t just famous, she’s infamous. Her small-time home invasion tied her up in not just any murder, but the most notorious series of murders of the second half of the 20th century. There is virtually nobody in the United States who hasn’t heard of/been scared shitless by the Manson Family and the Tate - Labianca murders. Rightly or wrongly, she’s paying the price for that, and realistically I’ll be surprised if she ever gets out. That may seem unfair; I guess the moral is that potential criminals should be forewarned that notoriety will work against them.
Notoriety aside, her crime was absolutely horrific by any standard. She may not have been as bad as Atkins or Watson, but that’s not saying a whole heck of a lot. She broke into somebody’s home in the dead of night with a group of crazies, strangled a pleading, screaming woman with an electrical cord, and stabbed her 16 times. To give that a little perspective, take a minute or so and bang your fist on the table 16 times. As a wise old lawyer once said to me, “anybody can shoot somebody, but stabbin’ somebody to death takes commitment.” This wasn’t a drunken argument or a robbery gone bad - she specifically went to a house to help break in and murder somebody she’d never even met before, and she knew they were really going to do it because the Family had just done it in the Tate home. She gruesomely ended the life of a wife and mother, who died in abject terror in her own home, and no amount of good discipline in prison can ever undo that. The California courts appear to use a standard of future dangerousness at the time of parole, and if they decide to free her on those grounds I’m okay with that decision. I wouldn’t say that she’d earned it, though.
I can honestly say that I don’t know a soul who was and certainly no one who is “scared shitless” by the murders. They were horrible, undoubtedly and terrifying for the victims in a way that most of us will never (thank G-d) understand. But I think you have perhaps overstated the impact to society at large.
TWEEEEET!
I know that this is a zombie, but it has been fairly calm, so far, (and even the original was not one of the more foaming-at-the-mouth varieties of thread), so I am going to leave this open,
HOWEVER,
I want everyone to note when a post was submitted and do not go attacking posters or picking fights over comments that are more than four years old.
(OR stop it if you have already crossed that line.)
[ /Moderating ]
Respectfully but strongly, strongly disagree - there’s a reason why we’re all discussing the parole of a 60 year old California woman whose crime was committed before I was born. You probably would have been scared shitless if you’d lived in Southern California in August of 1969, when people were getting slaughtered in their homes and there was a terror that a pandemic of murder was on the loose. The Tate - LaBianca murders and Manson Family trials made national headlines for a reason - the idea that an insane, drug crazed group of hippies could walk into your home and brutally murder you at any moment grabbed the national consciousness and never completely let go. Bugliosi’s book, “Helter Skelter,” still remains the #1 best selling true crime novel of all time because of it. Bugliosi opened the book with a single page reading "“The Story in Which You Are About to Read Will Scare the Hell Out of You,” and it did exactly that to many people.
I realize it’s a catch-22 but the only way she could prove to me that she truly regrets her actions and deserves parole would be for her to kill herself, anything else brings a benefit to her that she should realize she doesn’t deserve. If she truly regrets her actions suicide is the only option.
My personal opinion on paroling murderers is this: they should stay in prison until the person they murdered stops being dead.
Do you also wish that others who have committed similar crimes commit suicide rather than be released on parole? How large a mass suicide would appease your sense of “justice”?
At any cost?
If I steal your watch and get caught and I say I’m sorry but then get to keep the watch, is that justice?
If I kill someone, does feeling bad about it 30 years later so I can get out of prison bring them back to life.
Her being remorseful only benefits her, her killing herself shows true remorse because it’s the only action she can take to put her on par with the victim and receive no benefit. If she felt bad enough and was brave enough she would do it, she was certainly “brave” enough to do it to someone else.
If she doesn’t feel bad enough to kill herself she certainly doesn’t feel bad enough to get out of prison early.
I think your definition of “remorse” is sickening.
Absolutely. it could’ve been anyone is what most people thought.