Really? Last time I heard Roman Polanski, Tate’s husband and the father of their murdered unborn son, was still very much alive. Why not ask him how he feels about Akins’s release?
The funds spent on her while she dies in prison could be used to keep other inmates in for more of their sentences, rather than have them be released early due to the budget crisis in California.
You folks who are advocating not releasing her, are you okay with that consequence?
If you’re willing to deal with the consequences, I’ve no problem with keeping her in until she dies.
Out of curiousity, if she was comatose and due to die within weeks or months, would folks still be opposed to release? Given the fact she’d never know the difference and that it would cost about 1/4 as much to warehouse her on the outside.
(I ask this last question because I have patients who are basically vegetables and will be kept in a very expensive maximum-security ‘garden’ for years to come, until they die)
Oh wait, first you’d have to ask that other girl how she felt about…
Oh wait.
-FrL-
Oh, that’s wonderful. For after all, who doesn’t deserve to die with dignity and compassion? I’ll be if Patrick Polanski hadn’t been stabbed through the heart while in his dead mother’s womb he’d be the first one to say “My mom would want this” (which is really sort of ironic since the person who’d have ultimate say is one of the one’s she killed).
If keeping her in jail means more dangerous people are set free, then I’d be for releasing her. Ideally, as long as we are in some fantasy land where I make all the decisions, I would prefer that the people in jail for victimless crimes (like prostitution and drug possession) be freed and that money be used to keep all murderers locked up for life.
I would not still be opposed to her release, since my desire to keep her locked up was purely on a punishment basis.
For anybody who wants to see photos of the aftermath—not sure this is safe for work, so I put a space after the second slash and before html.
http:// crimeshots.com/FamilyVictims. html
Well, prisons aren’t really intended to make money for the state, they are to imprison those folks convicted and sentenced. Otherwise, you can make the above argument for all convicts, pressing for home detention.
If this lady has been a ward of the state for the last 39 years, I don’t know who is going to pick up her hospice tab other than the state. So I don’t expect the savings to be that much, but I could be wrong. 
Corrections sentences are intended to punish the wrong-doer, protect people from further depradations, serve as a warning to others, and to re-habilitate.
If home detention can serve effectively all 4 of those points for a particular offender, then it would make sense.
Compassonate release needs co-exist with those points too. I’ve seen requests for them turned down because the inmate hadn’t served sufficient time yet, despite no risk of re-offending and death being imminent. C’est la vie.
The state usually ends up paying for end of life indigent care in one form or another, in or out of prison. But it’s a lot cheaper out of prison for the state to do so.
The only problem is that in the future there are going to be more and more reasons to allow prisoners to get out early. The system is broken and now the choice is between what is the lesser of 2 evils? Keeping criminals locked up sounds like a good idea, like justice, but that also includes the cost of keeping them healthy. The people of California have dug this hole for themselves and they can either fix the problem or continue to get rid of older prisoners who may have nowhere to turn to, but it is too expensive to keep them locked up.
I would support being utterly comotose inmates in a cheaper facility. I mean totally unaware of their surroundings, unable to eat, mostly unable to enjoy being out of prison.
Susan Atkins apparently is aware of what is going on, and does not deserve to have the benefits being outside of prison brings. She should die in prison, and would have done so much sooner had the death penalty not been changed.
Two of those four points sound a little subjective, though. (Punishment, warning.) I hope you can see that reasonable people may disagree over whether imprisoning a specific inmate serves any further purpose on those two points.
The other two (protection of the public, rehabilitation) can be more objectively measured in some way.
In just about all cases of compassionate release, I would have to rely on the judgement of the case workers and prison staff (that thoroughly know the inmate in question), and take their recommendations as to the suitablilty of an inmate’s qualifications for compassionate release.
If there was effective oversight with home detention, I would not oppose it. But I have seen enough waste, freud, and abuse to make me worried about the “effectiveness” of anything the government does. (Heh.)
I don’t know what case you might have in mind. Possibly the deciding authority believed your first and third points wouldn’t be satisfied with a compassionate release.
IMO, your four points should be more important than saving money.
I hope you will excuse me (and others) if I fear that somehow, the government might screw it up, and folks get hurt.
True. But legislatures across the country have mandated that those 4 points be carried out in the most cost-effective way possible.
Well, where the gummint has turned corrections over to the private sector in this country, they’ve tended to be rather mistake-prone too. For-profit prisons have a very interesting track record.
I raise these issues more for discussion than to push a certain viewpoint, mainly because I see these issues raised weekly, if not more often. And I frequently get called on to predict whether someone is really likely to die within 6 months or not.
I personally believe we’re sending waaay too many folks to prison, and many folks are sent to prison for longer than is good for both the community & the inmate.
But I also believe that certain folks should not be released from prison until it can be determined with reasonable certainty that they are most sincerely dead.
I don’t have an opinion in the Atkins case because I lack the relevant facts. So I’m willing to defer the call to those folks tasked with making the decision.
No they shouldn’t their feelings are irrelevant.
Yeah, it is. The death penalty was suspended from 1972 to 1976 as a result of Furman v. Georgia, and all death penalties were commuted to life in prison, including all the Manson family.
By what law would you reinstate the death penalty?
Since she knows she’s dying, who’s to say she wouldn’t become a suicide bomber?
Anybody remember Willie Horton?
That Monty Python Black Knight was still tough with only one leg.
If Sharon Tate and her unborn child appear at the State Board of Parole hearing and indicates they supports a compassionate release for Susan Atkins then I would also.
Or take an example from Manson family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and shoot the President.
But per your cite, Squeaky didn’t shoot a President, she didn’t even get a shot off at President Ford. So Susan would do well not to take firearms education lessons from Squeaky, plus she’s shown a preference for blades anyway.
If Bugliosi is so damn compassionate about Susan Atkins, let HIM keep her in his house until she dies.
It’s easy to say such things when your life isn’t threatened, you didn’t know the victims, and you made a ton of money from the horrible crime. He can use some of that money to pay Atkin’s dying & death expenses.
What if Chuck Manson was the one dying of brain cancer? Ought he be released? Since I think not, I suppose I have to vote with the “let her rot” camp.
Ok. That’s a sentencing issue though, right? (Or are you implying that too many innocent folk get convicted?)
How does this apply to first degree murder, as in this Susan Atkins case. Is life imprisonment w/o parole too harsh in your opinion?
(I am framing the question with the assumption she is held in a standard U.S. facility, and not some Gulag or Devils Island death camp.)