Here’s a follow-up to my earlier thread about whether this puke should be paroled:
I’m curious as to the amount of taxpayer dollars it’s cost to keep this psycho-fuck in prison all these years.
I’m curious as to which he deserves more:
[li]Extended service as a prison wife.[/li]
[li]Extended use of his spine as a trampoline.[/li]
[li]Extended visit with the earthworms ASAP.[/li]
All of the above in that order.
Thank you for the follow up thread, and thank you for the Subject. 
Thank god someone finally has some sense.
It always cracks me up when they talk about Charles Manson’s parole hearings…WHY IS THIS GUY ELIGIBLE for Christ’s sake?
You know, as a pinko die hard liberal I tend to believe in the notion of someone paying their debt to society. The guy did wrong but now he sees the error of his ways. He was ill but has now recovered and deserves a second chance.
Whether he’s done that yet, I don’t know but when I heard about this on the radio tonight I just wanted to beat this person within an inch of his life. It’s not even aggressive anger or rage (not my thing), it’s somehow latent and apart from normal life. If I ever saw him, I’d simply have to hit him.
I don’t know how he could ever leave prison and not get beaten every day, wherever he goes.
Sorry, I’m really not an aggressive person. I just think he’d deserve to know what I thought.
At least it’s heartening to know that, occasionally, rational decisions are still being made.
We’ll never stop being outraged at the senselessness. And we still miss you, John.
[holding up very small candle]
London_Calling’s post (which appeared for me after I posted) reminded me of a show I saw just a few days ago about the Sam Sheppard murder case. Sheppard, you may recall, was convicted, on less than ironclad evidence, of murdering his wife, spent eight or so years in prison, got a retrial, and was ultimately acquitted. He attempted to return to normal life, but, among other things, he couldn’t walk down the street without having people scream “wife killer!” and such things at him. I don’t know if he was physically attacked as well, but it seems likely. I have no interest in commenting one way or another about the Sheppard case, and I don’t mean to imply that it is similar in any way to Lennon’s; my only point is that, undoubtedly, if this particular killer was ever released to the public, he certainly would not be “forgiven and forgotten”, or allowed to return to a “normal life” (whatever that is for that kind of psycho). He’d be lucky if he got away with just beatings from strangers. Personally, I wouldn’t want to take a bet on him surviving his first year out of prison. I’m not an agressive person either, but plenty of people are, and I’d say you’d have to take a number to be next in line to take a crack at him.
Here’s hoping we never have to find out.
What I find amazing is that he had the audacity to say John Lennon would have wanted him freed. It’s like Paula Poundstone said about Sirhan Sirhan (when he said the same thing about Robert Kennedy), “The one guy who’d have wanted this jerk to be paroled - and he shot him!”
It seems the opinion here is that if a) the victim was famous and b) the convicted is likely to be the victim of revenge attacks then c) he should never be released from prison. Would it not be a crime to attack this guy?
If the logic here is consistent and requires that no murderer ever deserves to be released, that is a point of view to which I could never subscribe, but I suppose could be justified by some. If the point of view is that he should remain incarcerated indefinitely for murdering a famous person as opposed to a less well known person, what the hell does that say about our values?
Not meaning to start a GD, just my thoughts.
Android,
My POV is anyone who just walks up to someone with no provocation is, ill or not, you put him away until you are SURE that he will not repeat it. If you have ANY doubts, you protect society and keep him locked up.
Seems a waste Manson even gets parole hearings. I can’t see him EVER getting out…
I guess you’d keep them all locked up forever then. Think about it, if we couldn’t predict beforehand if people were likely to commit these crimes, are we really any better equipped to make the same assessment afterwards, at some later stage?
I agree with London_Calling and android209 that people can be reformed and that they can “pay their debt to society”. I said in another thread that there are some people, convicted of heinous crimes and serving life terms or on Death Row, who probably no longer deserve to be punished.
But there’s no way Chapman or Manson will ever get out of prison in a vertical condition. Manson is clearly nuts, and Chapman killed someone famous. Each would probably be killed if released. There will be parole hearings ever two years for each of them, as required by law. Should we say, “Look. They’ll never get out. Why bother having the hearings.”? That would be logical. But we must play by the rules. If we don’t pay lip service to them by having parole hearings for these two people, then we’re denying the law to every other person who is serving a life sentence.
There will be other parole hearings, but I doubt there will be a release.
(android209 makes a good point about our values. Why is a famous person more important than an “unknown” person?)
Why is a famous person more important than an unknown person? Look at who we’re talking about.
John Lennon was a poet, an artist and a genius. His works (not just his music, but art as well) have influenced thousands of musicians, poets, writers and artists since the mid-60’s. He broke ground for hundreds of bands and attempted some socio-political influencing as well. As he said himself, “We’re bigger than Jesus.”
And look what they did to Jesus…
Personally, I’d like to see Chapman released. Then we each get one small rock and we send him across the country on foot. When you see him, wing the rock at his head.
And Jodie Foster gets the biggest rock. Hell, give her two big rocks!
The death of John Lennon was indeed a tragedy, for all of the reasons dogzilla points out. But I would be less forgiving toward someone who killed, say, my sister, than Chapman or Sirhan Sirhan. But I still think Manson is dangerously loony.
Dang. That’ll teach potential murderers. Don’t shoot someone famous! They’ll throw you in jail, and keep you there. Mostly so the crazed fans won’t kill you.
According to what I’m reading, it’s fine to kill as many of the faceless masses as you can get away with, but the rich and famous have a higher standard.
He murdered a guy. He’s blaming everyone but himself. He stays. I don’t see a problem with that.
A friend of mine is very spiritual and cool. When she heard that Lennon was killed, she was as shocked as the rest of us. We got over the shock in time…she didn’t, and it didn’t make any sense to her.
To make a long story as short as possible, she wrote a book about her strange connection with John Lennon. She believes, in a past life she was to be married to Lennon. In the previous life his name was John Baron. I don’t have the book handy, but I think they knew each other in and around 1673. He died due to a respitory ailment. She was a nurse…or nurse’s aide.
It’s a great story…and I believe it. She’s writing another book, and I’m in it. I interviewed her on my show several years ago, and I guess my support meant a lot to her.
I think there is more truth in that than anyone would like to admit.
Lennon was not more important than anyone else because he was famous, however, he was more loved. Think about it. If I get shot tomorrow, my family (about 20 total) would mourn me. And my BF. But that’s about it. And if the person wanted to get parolled twenty years after he killed me, only about 21 people would be fighting it. I didn’t effect anyone else in the world, therefore, I’m not important to them.
But Lennon, or other famous people, he’s different. He effect MILLIONS and he continues to do so even after his death. His life isn’t more important than mine, but more people care about him, and are willing to protest the parole of his murderer. It’s just a matter of degrees. Well-loved and well-respected people are going to get better treatment,from people as a whole. That’s all there is to it.
And don’t forget the most important thing. John had at least 2 children (that we know of) who were raised without a father. He had a wife who worshipped the ground he walked on, who lost her husband.
Besides, if the man who shot Kennedy was still alive, and wanted parole, would you say “Yeah, he’s probably changed.”
I believe it is incredibly naive to think that anybody changes from a man who pre-meditates murder, to a man who can walk in society without a problem.
I suppose there is an inevitable element of “murdered someone famous” to this, but I think that misses the point. People who have committed similar demented murders of “anonymous” targets have their parole denied regularly too; you just don’t hear about it, for the self-evident reason. The reason his parole was denied was not because it was Lennon he killed, or even because Chapman would be endangered as an accessible target for revenge. (After all, how hard would it be to find a Lennon fan equally deranged who would consider it an honor to do him in? That’s one reason he was kept in protective custody in prison.) The primary basis for the denial of parole was 1) the irrational and unprovoked nature of the attack, which implies an uncontrollable (read: not based on reason) threat; 2) the absence of any significant progress toward “normalcy” in Chapman’s mental state (he never was, for instance, suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations that are now controlled with medication; he was just twisted, and seems to be much the same now as he was then), and 3) Chapman’s continued desire for notoriety/publicity, which again makes it all the more likely that he would be a continuing threat.
It is not valid, in my opinion, to say that, for Chapman or anyone else, because we couldn’t predict the first attack we have no basis for judging the liklihood of another attack. You’d never done anything like that before; now you have. Having thus proved your inclination and your very deadly capacity to carry it out, I do believe that we are now in a position to pass some degree of judgement (taking into account the various factors involved) as to your liklihood of doing it again.
Just my .02 - I don’t want to debate, just feel that the right decision was made here, and that it was not in fact dictated by some vague desire to pander to the public.
BTW, I did get a smile out of Dogzilla’s rock suggestion. Would it be like Python’s “LOB”, where we could buy extras? (“All right, two sharp ones, two flats, and a packet of gravel.”)
Nope. You shoot the bastard. Regardless of your personal beliefs vis a vis the death penalty, you can’t argue with the fact that he/she will never harm another person, or continue to suck air and tax dollars while the victim rots in a grave.