MANSON MURDERER TO BE PAROLED

 



On August 9, 1969, three years after being named Monrovia High School's Homecoming Princess,  Leslie Van Houten, a 19-year-old follower of Charles Manson, assisted in stabbing Rosemary LaBianca to death, as part of the notorious Tate-LaBianca murders that occurred on that night.  Evidence was that she was under the influence of LSD at the time and a cult follower of Charles Manson, who died in prison for having directed his followers to commit the murders of Sharon Tate and Mr. and Mrs. LaBianca.  For Van Houten's role in the murder, she was convicted on March 29,1971, and sentenced to death. As the only female on California's death row at the time, special quarters were built for her to await the carrying out of her sentence.  

In 1972, Van Houten's death sentence was commuted to life in prison.

In 1977, she was given a re-trial for the reason that her defense attorney died while her case was being tried.  This trial resulted in a hung jury, and the case had to be tried a third time.  She was convicted of first-degree murder again, and again sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.  

California allowed Van Houten to be paroled after she had been incarcerated for seven years.  However, every time she has had a parole hearing, parole has been denied. 

On July 7, 2023, the Governor of California decided that California would no longer be fighting to keep Van Houten in prison.  She will be paroled shortly.

 Many will say that one who committed first-degree murder should never be released from custody.   On the opposite side, the parole board has recommended parole for her for over 5 years now.   The state has to ask whether it is worth it, in one judge's words, "to turn our prisons into old folks' homes."  Many states have special provisions concerning granting parole to inmates over 70 years old for that reason.  

A homecoming princess no more, I would have to agree with California's decision on this one.  Life has passed her by. She is now 74 years old and has spent the past 54 years in prison.  Her leader died in prison. All her friends are gone. She missed out on life, and it is her own fault. At this point, I believe the State has little to gain from keeping her in prison any longer. 






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 Things Lawyers Can't Tell Jurors

Image
 It is a trial lawyer's job to educate jurors, and tell them what they need to know in order to decide cases. Despite this, there are many things, true things, that lawyers are not allowed to tell jurors directly in statements to the jury or indirectly through testimony of their witnesses. Lawyers know these things, though, and I thought you might like to know some of things. #1. A lawyer can't tell the jurors anything that happened during settlement negotiations. He cannot let the jurors know, when asking them to make the defendant pay his client $100,000 that the defendant agreed to pay him $80,000 prior to the trial. The reason for this is that you want settlement negotiations to be very open. You don't want to damage a negotiation session because someone is afraid that what they say will get repeated to a jury if you don't strike a deal. #2 In Idaho, a lawyer can't tell the jurors that the defendant has insurance. In many other states, he can. Bec
Read more

Man Framed by Prosecutor Released After 29 Years in Prison Seeking Lawsuit

Image
19 year old, Charise Kamps, was found raped and strangled to death in her apartment in June 1980. Ralph Armstrong told the police that both of them were at the apartment alone doing cocaine before leaving to go see friends around 9:30 pm. Police said that they learned that Armstrong owed Kamp's boyfriend $400 and witnesses saw Armstrong handing Kamps money that night. However, the money was not found in the apartment, and Armstrong deposited $315 in his bank the next day.The defense argued that he got the money from his brother. One of the neighbors saw a lean, muscular man about 5 feet 5 inches tall with long, dark hair drive up to the apartment. Before the identification process, the police had the witness hypnotized. He was shown a photograph of Armstrong, and After being hypnotized, the witness changed the height of the man he saw. Later at a lineup to have the witness select the man he saw, he chose Armstrong. The other people in the lineup were police officers in wigs
Read more

Tuesday Tip: Reid Interrogation Technique

Image
Various methods have been used in police interrogations to elicit a confession. By far the most popular method used for over seventy years is the Reid Technique. This interrogation method assumes guilty suspects can be identified from certain behavioral cues. It is said to be proven as highly effective at getting confessions; however, there has been criticism about it for many years because it has been linked to many wrongful convictions.  Around 25 percent of post conviction DNA exonerations have been associated with a false confession from authorities using the Reid Technique. Even one of the first cases in which John Reid used this technique turned out to be a false confession. More and more scientists and scholars are saying this approach is based on outdated psychology. There are several components incorporated in this technique, including room design and how the investigator conducts the interview. There are three spatial zones the investigators use, which can be seen in
Read more