# Van Houten parole reinstated by appeals court (has been released July 11, 2023)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [May 30, 2023, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790 "2023-05-30T21:54:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/41 "2023-06-01T10:42:13Z")
I don’t know if she deserves to be set free, but the people of California deserve to show her mercy - if not for her sake, then for theirs.
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/42 "2023-06-01T13:23:49Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> , but the people of California deserve to show her mercy - if not for her sake, then for theirs.
To paraphrase Clarence Darrow, Justice is hard to define, but everyone knows what love and mercy look like
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/43 "2023-06-01T13:46:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> don’t know if she deserves to be set free, but the people of California deserve to show her mercy - if not for her sake, then for theirs.
This is wise.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/44 "2023-06-01T16:02:26Z")
I suppose one of the lessons here is that if you are going to be a criminal, don’t be a high profile one. And further, don’t pick people with vindictive revenge-oriented family members as your victims.
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/45 "2023-06-01T16:05:01Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> And further, don’t pick people with vindictive revenge-oriented family members as your victims.
I don’t blame the family members for holding a grudge over these murders. But, I also don’t think their view should control what happens.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/46 "2023-06-01T16:12:51Z")
> [@Procrustus](#):
>
> But, I also don’t think their view should control what happens.
Should their view be a consideration?
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/47 "2023-06-01T16:14:03Z")
Yes. In my opinion, we should _consider_ their view.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/48 "2023-06-01T16:24:17Z")
I’m not sure we should.
The State is punishing Van Houten. Not for what she did to the Tate family, but for what she did to California society. The standard that should apply is therefore the reasonable Californian, not the particular aggrieved relative(s) of the particular victim(s).
Further, imagine two victims, one of whose family was all Kumbaya and one of whose was all hang-em-high. We, the people of the state by and through our government, should treat the killer of the Kumbaya family member nicely while torturing the killer of the hang-em-high family?
Said another way we want to apply extra punishment and presumably extra deterrence to potential killers of one group over the other? Really?
And what of victims with large families versus those with small? Should more tearful relatives produce more punishment? Again the State is the aggrieved party here, not the victim’s family.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/49 "2023-06-01T16:54:16Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Again the State is the aggrieved party here, not the victim’s family.
A rather antiseptic way of looking at it.
There are victims and their families who argue for lighter sentences and parole (and get abundant media attention). Do their wishes get similarly disregarded?
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/50 "2023-06-01T17:04:51Z")
This is certainly the crux of the debate ever since victim’s statements became part of the sentencing phase and the subsequent parole phase of the criminal justice process. Which is WAG 50 years ago now.
Humans are emotional creatures. Both the good people and the miscreants. Should our governmental systems be emotional like us, or reliable repeatable stolid machinery that will produce the same outcome from the same top-line inputs every time? There’s plenty of real history and of SF stories exploring the horrors at either end of that spectrum.
My personal bias runs to developing well-founded policies based on society-level criteria then applying them diligently in the specific. That can appear rather bloodless when applied to messy situations. To me the alternative smacks far too much of random easily abused (or corrupted) discretion, luck of the draw, and mere malice.
I think it quite likely that if a similar Manson-like cult figure and small coterie appeared here in, say, 2024 and did some similar crimes the overall reaction of society would be rather different today than it was in the early 1970s when the Manson crimes were prosecuted.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/51 "2023-06-01T17:15:38Z")
They did more than just the murders. They tried to start a race war. They made it look like the peaceful hippie community was behind it. It terrorized a community and maligned a large segment of society.
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### Author:  [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/52 "2023-06-01T20:09:21Z")
> [@hajario](#):
>
> They did more than just the murders. They tried to start a race war.
That’s what Bugliosi wrote, sure, but his claims shouldn’t necessarily be taken for gospel. He was, after all, the prosecutor, whose whole job was to get defendants found guilty, and it was a very, _very_ high profile case. Thus, it was in his interest to make these particular defendants seem as heinous and menacing as possible (which admittedly wasn’t all that hard to do, since they _were_ a crazy and frightening lot) so the jury would be scared to death of them and convict. This was very soon after the Civil Rights movement became prominent, remember, and at the moment racism wasn’t as popular as usual in mainstream America.
There were also Family members and other witnesses who testified and didn’t confirm the Helter Skelter hypothesis.
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### Author:  [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/53 "2023-06-01T20:33:32Z")
Well, also, the whole Helter Skelter thing was mainly Charlie’s. I don’t know if any of the others really bought into. Instead, they just did whatever Charlie said.
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### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/54 "2023-06-01T21:08:36Z")
If they had accepted their councils advice, they couldve gotten diminished capacity. But they tried to implicate themselves to help Charlie. Kindof proves my point.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/55 "2023-06-01T21:09:14Z")
Manson wouldn’t be the first (or last) white man to try and pin his crimes on black people.
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/56 "2023-06-01T22:26:32Z")
One thing has kept her name vaguely familiar to a lot of people: Milhouse. The origin of his last name has been mentioned a few times.
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### Author:  [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2023, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/57 "2023-06-02T02:50:12Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#):
>
> One thing has kept her name vaguely familiar to a lot of people: Milhouse. The origin of his last name has been mentioned a few times
I always thought that was from Nixon.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2023, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/58 "2023-06-02T03:03:30Z")
His name is Milhouse Van Houten
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2023, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/59 "2023-07-08T02:04:22Z")
She is getting paroled-Governor Newsom will not challenge this time. [Manson family killer Leslie Van Houten will be paroled, lawyer says, after Gov. Newsom drops fight](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charles-manson-follower-leslie-van-houten-parole-newsom-rcna93188)
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### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2023, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/van-houten-parole-reinstated-by-appeals-court-has-been-released-july-11-2023/984790/60 "2023-07-08T03:14:48Z")
That seems fair. Women who were on death row with her were paroled long ago.
She was out on bail for a few months in 1978 with no problems.
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