I never thought I would feel this way, but I think they should just parole her and let her go.

[BigDemVoter]

Leslie Van Houten is at no risk to anybody. She has pretty much forfeited her entire life for what she did as a young girl. Of course there isn't an excuse for what she did, nor can any of her victims have the same chance. Nonetheless, keeping an old woman in jail seems counterproductive.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/youngest-member-murderous-manson-cult-faces-california-parole-hearing/

[Loki Liesmith]

1. I have no interest in seeing her free

She will stop costing us money in time.

[hlthe2b]

2. I don't feel strongly about releasing her, but I think the LaBianca family ought to be heard

If they are unopposed, then I guess so. I will never get past the fact that she, (however rehabilitated she may be now) at age 19 (not a child) held Rosemary La Bianca down as the others stabbed her. Then she stabbed the victim repeatedly with a butcher knife as many as 19 additional times.

[ADX]

4. Agreed...

...If the LaBianca family doesn't mind, then I don't. However, if they have a problem with her being released then she should remain in custody, period.

I'm vehemently opposed to the death penalty but some crimes absolutely deserve life without the possibility of parole, ever.

[MyOwnPeace]

10. I agree...........

I truly do not believe it is our right to take the life of another, but to serve a life sentence is justice for such a terrible crime.

[bdamomma]

34. I agree also

let her live or die of natural causes but she should not be set free. She committed a horrible crime.

[dawg day]

30. In my state, two teen girls have been sentenced to death

One sentence was commuted eventually.
The other just (now 56) was told that the state would no longer move for execution. (After 35 years on death row, she's apparently no longer mentally capable of "understanding.&quot

I don't think van Houten should have been executed particularly, but it is interesting how unequally the "teen death penalty" is applied:
From "The Juvenile Death Penalty: In the Best Interests of
the Child?" Suzanne D. Strater

By the 1990s, approximately 287 juveniles had been executed for
criminal offenses in the United States.45 Nearly two-thirds of the
juvenile executions took place in the South.46 All but nine of the
adolescents executed were male. 47 Furthermore, three-fourths of the
juveniles executed were people of color.48 Overwhelmingly, their
victims were white.

https://lawecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1568&context=luclj

[maxsolomon]

3. The quality of mercy is not strained...

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

-Merchant of Venice

[localroger]

17. +11111... /nt

[3Hotdogs]

5. Let her go.

[LiberalFighter]

6. Personally, if someone is confirmed to have committed such an atrocity.

They should be executed.

[ADX]

9. With all due respect to your opinion...

...Why?

[LiberalFighter]

31. Why not?

When someone murders someone without any justification and do not care about how their actions effect others why give them any compassion?

[ADX]

32. Compared to life without the possibility of parole...

Last edited Thu Jan 31, 2019, 03:20 PM - Edit history (1)

...locked down 23 hours a day in a supermax prison, the death penalty IS compassion...

[Maru Kitteh]

33. Why not just kill people? Why not sanction states murdering their own citizens?

1) Its ineffective
2) It's more costly than LWOP
3) Sometimes we get it wrong and kill innocent people (usually people of color, surprise surprise)
4) It is unjustly and disproportionately applied to those of color

[Devil Child]

15. +1 n/t

[UpInArms]

7. Am for keeping her in prison ...

Returning to the bedroom, Watson found Krenwinkel stabbing Rosemary LaBianca with a knife from the LaBianca kitchen. Heeding Manson's instruction to make sure each of the women played a part, Watson told Van Houten to stab Mrs. LaBianca too.[51 She did, stabbing her approximately 16 times in the back and the exposed buttocks.[7]:204–210, 297–300, 341–344 At trial, Van Houten would claim, uncertainly,[7]:433 that Rosemary LaBianca was dead when she stabbed her. Evidence showed that many of Mrs. LaBianca's 41 stab wounds had, in fact, been inflicted post-mortem.[7]:44, 206, 297, 341–42, 380, 404, 406–07, 433

[nini]

18. Yep. It was gruesome

And it gave her a thrill. She can stay where she's at

[Progressive Jones]

8. Let her rot. She's a vile murderer. That's forever. nt

[Duppers]

14. Something tells me I shouldn't agree but I do.

No human should ever have anything in them to ever act that savagely and viciously.
Something is missing in her and I do not think society should ever be exposed to such people.

[leftyladyfrommo]

11. I don't know about her but some of those people

really turned their lives around and spent their years in prison teaching and trying to be as productive as they could. The person they are now after all these years is not the same person as the one who committed those awful crimes.

I still believe that redemption is possible.

[cwydro]

12. No.

Let her continue to do good things in prison.

Just no. Read the transcripts and look at the pictures.

No.

[skylucy]

26. +1000 She needs to stay in prison.

[whistler162]

13. What do Leno and Rosemary LaBianca think?

If they are okay with it then okay release her.

[USALiberal]

16. I agree that after so many years, she should be paroled. A different person now. nt

[aikoaiko]

19. Im OK with murderers like her dying in prison.

[localroger]

20. This is a case that forces us to confront the worst about our own humanity

Van Houten was 19 when she participated in a brutal murder party. This is about the same age at which the world's militaries recruit young people to do essentially the same thing. Experience has shown by the hundreds of thousands that turning a normal person into a killing machine is just a matter of indoctrination, and Manson was a hell of a persuasive guy in his own weird way.

It has now been 50 years -- almost three times Van Houten's age when she committed the murder -- since that happened, 50 years apart from her trainer / mentor and 50 years to reflect on her role in the atrocity. 50 years to grow older and weaker but also most likely wiser; that last part is for the parole board to determine.

A few violent moments can change a person, as can a few decades to reflect. If we don't believe in those things we aren't living in reality and we are rejecting the very idea of free will. Maybe Van Houten should have been killed by the state when she was 19 and we knew what she did, but she wasn't, and the 69-year old woman now serving her time is in many real ways not the same person. I didn't kill anybody when I was 19 but I know I am a very different person even at 55 than I was back then.

Determining whether a person has changed enough, or become safe enough, to release is the job of the parole board. That's what they do. They examine whether a person has been rehabilitated, whether they are remorseful, whether they are likely to be a risk, and so on. The fact that the parole board has twice recommended her release, only to be overruled by the governor, tells me that keeping her locked up is a political hack job. She should be treated like any other criminal, and the violence of her crime isn't particularly great compared to some others. It's just much more public, and that should not be a factor in any decision concerning her fate.

[UpInArms]

23. I would say the same for anyone who had done this

They do not deserve to walk free

Their victims do not have that opportunity

I do not desire her death .. I just do not believe she gets a get out of jail free card

[localroger]

24. That is fair.

But that is not what has happened to thousands of other parole candidates. No matter what happens it is not a "get out of jail free card," considering she has been in jail since I was five years old already. She should not be treated differently just because her younger self committed a "famous" crime. The parole board has spoken twice. They have a lot more information than either we or the governor do.

[UTUSN]

21. Nope.

[TeamPooka]

22. She personally stabbed two people to death in their home and was party to other vicious murders.

I'm cool with her staying where she is.

[LenaBaby61]

28. I'm cool with her staying where she is.

Same here but she'll probably be paroled, as the prison panel said, she's "suitable" for parole 🙄

Not only did this animal murder someone, but she was also part of Helter Skelter, where Manson spoke of an upcoming race war between blacks and whites. We know whose side that racist POS was on. I was a child when Helter Skelter was talked about, and it scared the hell out of me.

Helter Skelter

In the scenario, the tensions between the races would lead to violent murders of whites by blacks, which would be met in return with murders of blacks by whites, and so on, until a full scale war erupted. At the same time, in Manson’s theory, white people would turn against their neighbors, leading the white race to fight both itself and the blacks at the same time until it was annihilated and blacks emerged victorious, according to the University of Virginia.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article185581763.html


Meanwhile, Manson and his followers would crawl down a secret hole in Death Valley and wait out the bloody war in a secret underground city. Upon the war’s end, the group would rise from the desert and rule the victorious blacks, whom Manson thought would be incapable of governing themselves, according to the Huffington Post.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/charles-mansons-race-war_b_249914.html

So no, she needs to keep her ass parked right there in JAIL. Let her have been a woman of COLOR like poor Lena Baker, whose only crime was self-defense from a white male WHILE black. Boo frickin' hoo for Van Houten





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Baker

[TeamPooka]

29. If she was a person of color no one would be Asking for her release

[struggle4progress]

25. What a sad story

[IronLionZion]

35. There are black and Hispanic women in prison who did much less