Is it time to parole Leslie Van Houten?

[radcen]

No amount of your prattling can substitute for proof.

Duly noted.

 

[Captain America]

We have supported her this long. Medical, dental, room, board. Hell, they say she even got a few college degrees on our dime. No student loan! Why ruin a good thing? Lock her up for life.

Or, just put her down and let's spend that money on someone more deserving.

This is why I would never make for a good judge in court. "Guilty! Off with their heads!" I say......... :mrgreen:

 

[Mr Person]

Your question is moot now...

Manson Family Member Leslie Van Houten Approved for Parole - Us Weekly

I think I just read elsewhere that the governor (or other official) has to approve it in that state, so it's not certain

 

[matchlight]

You're confused about where the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt is supposed to be applied. It isn't supposed to be infallible regarding exonerating someone from a murder verdict, but regarding the handing down of the murder verdict in the first place. If you look at those anti-capital websites from that perspective, their point will become more clear to you.

If I had been confused about evidence law, that sure would not have enlightened me. All your doubletalk amounts to is this assertion: While the reasonable doubt standard must apply in court, the "second-guesser's hunch standard" is all that needs to be met to override it after the fact.

To claim a person was wrongly executed is to claim either that his guilt of the capital crime he was charged with was not proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, or that exculpatory evidence which surely would have raised a reasonable doubt in the jurors' minds was for some reason never presented to them.

As part of my continuing legal education requirement, I recently watched a lengthy video of a conference in which a former district attorney and various senior prosecutors and judges discussed in detail how determinations involving the death penalty have evolved in California since the sensational execution of Caryl Chessman in 1960. The protective procedures now in place are so fantastically thorough and overlapping that it is a wonder anyone has ever been convicted of a capital crime here since those days, let alone sentenced to death for it. In most cases--drive-by shooting murders by gang members are just one typical example of these--the policy of the L.A. County D.A.'s office is not even to seek the death penalty.

Of course that is as it should be. Drive-bys in which toddlers who happened to be in the wrong place get murdered are just routine tragedies--misguided youths venting their frustrations at their unfair treatment by society. It torments me to realize how we are all guilty--how we have all failed these poor young men. It is our society which should have been on trial instead. Who can doubt that THEY are the real victims, and not some careless little brat who should have gotten out of the way while they were shooting?

Chessman was convicted of kidnapping a woman to rape her, which in 1947 qualified for the death penalty under California law. I am familiar with the various crimes he committed and with his trial and the appeals, etc. which followed it, and don't believe there was any injustice in his conviction and execution.

 

[Cardinal]

If I had been confused about evidence law, that sure would not have enlightened me. All your doubletalk amounts to is this assertion: While the reasonable doubt standard must apply in court, the "second-guesser's hunch standard" is all that needs to be met to override it after the fact.

To claim a person was wrongly executed is to claim either that his guilt of the capital crime he was charged with was not proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, or that exculpatory evidence which surely would have raised a reasonable doubt in the jurors' minds was for some reason never presented to them.

As part of my continuing legal education requirement, I recently watched a lengthy video of a conference in which a former district attorney and various senior prosecutors and judges discussed in detail how determinations involving the death penalty have evolved in California since the sensational execution of Caryl Chessman in 1960. The protective procedures now in place are so fantastically thorough and overlapping that it is a wonder anyone has ever been convicted of a capital crime here since those days, let alone sentenced to death for it. In most cases--drive-by shooting murders by gang members are just one typical example of these--the policy of the L.A. County D.A.'s office is not even to seek the death penalty.

Of course that is as it should be. Drive-bys in which toddlers who happened to be in the wrong place get murdered are just routine tragedies--misguided youths venting their frustrations at their unfair treatment by society. It torments me to realize how we are all guilty--how we have all failed these poor young men. It is our society which should have been on trial instead. Who can doubt that THEY are the real victims, and not some careless little brat who should have gotten out of the way while they were shooting?

Chessman was convicted of kidnapping a woman to rape her, which in 1947 qualified for the death penalty under California law. I am familiar with the various crimes he committed and with his trial and the appeals, etc. which followed it, and don't believe there was any injustice in his conviction and execution.

https://www.texasobserver.org/texas...-tests-undermine-evidence-in-texas-execution/

Claude Jones always claimed that he wasn’t the man who walked into an East Texas liquor store in 1989 and shot the owner. He professed his innocence right up until the moment he was strapped to a gurney in the Texas execution chamber and put to death on Dec. 7, 2000. His murder conviction was based on a single piece of forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene—a strand of hair—that prosecutors claimed belonged to Jones.

But DNA tests completed this week at the request of the Observer and the New York-based Innocence Project show the hair didn’t belong to Jones after all. The day before his death in December 2000, Jones asked for a stay of execution so the strand of hair could be submitted for DNA testing. He was denied by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

If it had come out that the hair belonged to the victim and not the suspect, would you have delivered a guilty verdict?

 

[RetiredUSN]

Let her die in prison, and then...................good riddance!

 

[Gathomas88]

CHINO, Calif. — Leslie Van Houten, the youngest of Charles Manson's followers to take part in one of the nation's most notorious killings, is trying again for parole.

The homecoming princess who descended into a life of drugs before joining Manson's cult in the 1960s is scheduled for her 21st hearing before a parole board panel on Thursday at the California Institution for Women in Chino.

Van Houten, 66, has spent more than four decades in prison, completing college degrees and demonstrating exemplary behavior.

She was convicted for her role in the 1969 murders of wealthy grocer Leno La Bianca and his wife Rosemary in their Los Angeles home. The La Biancas were stabbed numerous times and the word "WAR" was carved on his stomach.

Ex-Manson family member seeks parole for 1969 murder

I say emphatically no. I don't care if she isn't a "threat". She sure as **** was a threat to Rosemary La Bianca.

I frankly don't see any reason why she shouldn't be. She was incredibly young when the attacks took place, arguably not in her right mind due to Manson's influence, and she's made a legitimate effort to reform herself in the time since.

"Justice" must ultimately make allowance for forgiveness, and reformation, as well as punishment.

 

[matchlight]

I frankly don't see any reason why she shouldn't be. She was incredibly young when the attacks took place, arguably not in her right mind due to Manson's influence, and she's made a legitimate effort to reform herself in the time since.

"Justice" must ultimately make allowance for forgiveness, and reformation, as well as punishment.

Rosemary LaBiance was at home, peacefully minding her own business. She had never done one single thing to harm Ms. Van Houten--had never even met her. And yet this vicious, depraved female admitted that she purposely stabbed Mrs. LaBianca fourteen times, causing her death. For that act a jury--on her third trial--convicted her of murder. Van Houten was more than old enough to know exactly what she was doing, and the jury found that at the time she acted she had the bad intent required for the crime of murder. The murder she committed was wanton and heinous, and in a just world she would have been executed for it. Barring that, life in prison is the appropriate sentence. To hell with this witch.

 

[TurtleDude]

CHINO, Calif. — Leslie Van Houten, the youngest of Charles Manson's followers to take part in one of the nation's most notorious killings, is trying again for parole.

The homecoming princess who descended into a life of drugs before joining Manson's cult in the 1960s is scheduled for her 21st hearing before a parole board panel on Thursday at the California Institution for Women in Chino.

Van Houten, 66, has spent more than four decades in prison, completing college degrees and demonstrating exemplary behavior.

She was convicted for her role in the 1969 murders of wealthy grocer Leno La Bianca and his wife Rosemary in their Los Angeles home. The La Biancas were stabbed numerous times and the word "WAR" was carved on his stomach.

Ex-Manson family member seeks parole for 1969 murder

I say emphatically no. I don't care if she isn't a "threat". She sure as **** was a threat to Rosemary La Bianca.

she caught a break in the USSC rulings on the death penalty so instead of dying a horribly painful death through cyanide gas, she is still alive in some ways the worst thing the state of California could do is to put her on the streets where she would be a pariah, unemployable and probably a target for all sorts of weirdos

 

[d0gbreath]

No one younger than 60 knows what was happening back in the days of those henious murders. What did you read in your sanitized history text books? Did they go into detail about the Chicago 8, SDS, the Yippies, Weather Underground, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Harold Baez, or the Kent State massacre?

When I read that Trump and Sanders are anti-establishment, I'm convinced that the history texts aren't accurate.

With the Manson cult of personality and a hundred hits of LSD, combined with what was happening after the summer of love, it's easier to see that the Manson family thought that they were at war. Manson is a loon. He believed that he could rise up to lead the black race to a revolution that would overthrow the US government.

Why weren't there any men in his family of followers?

The LA Biancas and Sharon Tate were murdered by the girls for the simple reason that they were affluent. Charlie was not present at either murder scene. He did not participate in the ghoulish killings, yet was found guilty of murder. It's because the murders did not make sense. Having war against the establishment was not a proper motive. It was a motive that scared the **** out of Americans, especially having been commited by young women.

Van Houte has served 47 more years than the Ohio National Guard served for killing four college students, paralyzing one, and wounding eight others. Let her go.

 

[DA60]

As far as I am concerned, if you murder another human being, then you forfeit the right to live in society as you clearly lack the compassion and mental understanding of human decency.
It's not about justice or revenge, it is about protecting society. And if you have the mental/emotional capacity to murder once, then you have it to do it (or other awful crimes) again, IMO....no matter how old you are.
I do not believe in the death penalty at all.
But I do believe in 'don't do the crime if you can't do the time'.
She murdered people in a horrible and sick way. I do not believe someone who can do that can or should ever be allowed to freely live in society again.
And to those who say she just fell for the Manson-brain washing? If she is so pathetically weak/stupid so as to be talked into doing horrific crimes once - then she is clearly stupid/weak enough to be talked into doing horrific things again.
Lock her up for good.
Allow her a reasonably comfortable, SOLITARY existence if she behaves herself (again, this is not about punishment but protecting society)...but never let her back into society.

 

[antiquity]

I think I just read elsewhere that the governor (or other official) has to approve it in that state, so it's not certain

As I understand it is three steps in the California parole system. Van Houten was recommended to the Parole board by the Parole commission for release. But you are right, Governor Brown has the final say.

 

[_Sal]

Emotionally I say no, rationally I say yes.

She has served her time and likely more than others who are now free. Her likelihood of recidivism is low to none.

I don't know how free she will really be. But to her a one roomed shack where she can go outside at will would seem worth it.

People would rather die than lose their freedom.

 

[Sweden]

Id like to see psych evals. Its not hard to understand why she did what she did. Part of the healing process for all is understanding, empathy, unconditional love, and unconditional forgiveness. The question I would have is has she accepted responsibility, learned, healed and forgiven herself.

Must be something wrong with me as I do 'find it hard to understand' why someone holds people down while they are being murdered. Maybe I'm missing the weepy hand-wringing we-are-all-guilty gene. So now we now know that I am a bad person this question arises: should I forgive myself?

 

[Fearandloathing]

CHINO, Calif. — Leslie Van Houten, the youngest of Charles Manson's followers to take part in one of the nation's most notorious killings, is trying again for parole.

The homecoming princess who descended into a life of drugs before joining Manson's cult in the 1960s is scheduled for her 21st hearing before a parole board panel on Thursday at the California Institution for Women in Chino.

Van Houten, 66, has spent more than four decades in prison, completing college degrees and demonstrating exemplary behavior.

She was convicted for her role in the 1969 murders of wealthy grocer Leno La Bianca and his wife Rosemary in their Los Angeles home. The La Biancas were stabbed numerous times and the word "WAR" was carved on his stomach.

Ex-Manson family member seeks parole for 1969 murder

I say emphatically no. I don't care if she isn't a "threat". She sure as **** was a threat to Rosemary La Bianca.

The criteria for release should be her behavior, what she has done with her life etc. While the type of crime is of course considered, the level of horror should not be any consideration. It is no more than revenge.

Justice is not justice if it is propelled by strong emotions like hate or revenge.

The best advertisement for the democratic process and its criminal justice system is when it succeeds in this manner and transforms what appeared to be a horrible monster.

 

[Sweden]

Emotionally I say no, rationally I say yes.

She has served her time and likely more than others who are now free. Her likelihood of recidivism is low to none.

I don't know how free she will really be. But to her a one roomed shack where she can go outside at will would seem worth it.

People would rather die than lose their freedom.

Yes, I expect those were the dying thoughts of those she helped murder: "Thank goodness they are only killing me and not taking away my freedom".

 

[Fearandloathing]

Yes, I expect those were the dying thoughts of those she helped murder: "Thank goodness they are only killing me and not taking away my freedom".

It would be helpful if there were correct facts to back up that cave man mentality, but, the youngest of Charlie's sect Leslie was charged and convicted with ONE murder. It would be questionable even for me if she had been party to serial killing

 

[VanceMack]

Must be something wrong with me as I do 'find it hard to understand' why someone holds people down while they are being murdered. Maybe I'm missing the weepy hand-wringing we-are-all-guilty gene. So now we now know that I am a bad person this question arises: should I forgive myself?

Sure...go ahead and forgive yourself.

Start with the beginning. Do you WANT to understand why? Not excuse. Not justify. Understand. Simple concept. Do you WANT to understand why?

 

[_Sal]

Yes, I expect those were the dying thoughts of those she helped murder: "Thank goodness they are only killing me and not taking away my freedom".

which completely demonstrates the depth and level of your understanding of psychology

ignorance is not a thing to be displayed in a proud manner

 

[_Sal]

Sure...go ahead and forgive yourself.

Start with the beginning. Do you WANT to understand why? Not excuse. Not justify. Understand. Simple concept. Do you WANT to understand why?

why would they want to do that...it's the rational, logical approach to future prevention....no...better they wring their hands, load their guns and whine about how the world is unsafe and they need to defend themselves dammit

why diffuse when you can just kill...it's a hobby apparently

the irony is palpable but...they won't get it

 

[Sweden]

which completely demonstrates the depth and level of your understanding of psychology

ignorance is not a thing to be displayed in a proud manner

Your comment lacks neither ignorance nor pride. So why do you display it? I believe there is a delete function.

 

[VanceMack]

why would they want to do that...it's the rational, logical approach to future prevention....no...better they wring their hands, load their guns and whine about how the world is unsafe and they need to defend themselves dammit

why diffuse when you can just kill...it's a hobby apparently

the irony is palpable but...they won't get it

I see your response is as loaded and kneejerk as his. I'm probably if not one of at least in the top 10% of the most ardent gun supporters on this site and one of the staunchest supporters of mandatory minimum sentencing laws and a propenent of societies right and need to be able to protect itself from violent criminals. Socially I am probably more liberal than most liberals on this site; we just differ in what we believe is helpful.

 

[Sweden]

Sure...go ahead and forgive yourself.

Start with the beginning. Do you WANT to understand why? Not excuse. Not justify. Understand. Simple concept. Do you WANT to understand why?

Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner - to understand all is to forgive all. So no,VanceMack, I do not want to 'understand'.

 

[_Sal]

Your comment lacks neither ignorance nor pride. So why do you display it? I believe there is a delete function.

good get busy and use it

oh ... OR

be aware that you still don't look one iota smarter...

want to demonstrate your level of understanding of psychology or is that beyond you?

I'm all ears?

 

[radcen]

Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner - to understand all is to forgive all. So no,VanceMack, I do not want to 'understand'.

To me, that is just ignorant. Hide one's head in the sand ignorant. Understanding is knowledge, and progress* is made with knowledge, not lack of.

*-Progress in terms of solving problems and finding solutions, not the co-opted trendy political definition.