Posted on 07/03/2008 2:34:01 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Few if any murders carry the horrifying cachet of the Manson murders in 1969. The deaths of seven people on two nights at the end of a tumultuous decade combined all of the political and cultural baggage of the era — drugs, counterculture, celebrity, cults, and pure evil in the form of the perpetrators, especially Charles Manson himself. Combining mass murder and serial murder, the Manson Family has played on the imaginations of Americans for almost 40 years, while its members routinely apply for parole and get rejected.
Now one of them faces death, although much different in nature than the deaths she herself inflicted on her victims. Susan Atkins, probably the most committed of all the Tate/LaBianca murderers to Manson himself, has terminal brain cancer and is not expected to live out the year. She wants to be released so that she can die at home, presumably with family and friends. Matthew Schmalz asks in Newsweek whether mercy or retribution should take precedence (via Shaun Mullen):
Justice or mercy? That is the pressing question in what seems to be a coda in the story of the 1969 Manson family murders. At issue is the request by Susan Atkins, now 60, for compassionate release from prison on the grounds of terminal illness.
Apart from Charles Manson himself, Atkins was the public face of the Manson family during the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. She had bragged about mercilessly stabbing the pregnant Sharon Tate and laughed when details of the murders were presented in court. When she received a death sentence, the verdict seemed particularly appropriate. When her punishment was later changed to life imprisonment with possibility parole, it seemed to be a gross distortion of the justice process.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
bfl
In prison, preferably by firing squad or hanging.
What did Tex do?
Sexy Sadie was a fried butcher of the highest order. Screw her skank ass. I hope she dies hard and alone.
Sick Bitch.
Jesus, folks who never did more than white collar or pot smuggling die in the joint every frigging day and nobody but their family and maybe a decent hack or PA gives a shite.
She should be the last person in America's penal system to be given a mercy furlough to die at home.
She shoulda been hung years ago. I bet she had a tolerable prison stay all cozy with whatever sappho pal she cozied up to in there. Drugs, punny, free food. TV in her cell.
Life in the joint ain't capital punishment folks...
Are folks going to be crying for Aldrich Ames or Hanssen to be released too when the reaper's shadow closes in?
In the Feds, you die in the infirmary on site unless it’s an emergency.
Most with chronic will have been sent to medical equipped joint....Ft Worth, Springfield, Rochester...etc
I’m sure Kali has the same.
the sentence was not Life, it was Death.
She’s lived entirely too long. Let her die in prison. ALONE.
She was sentenced to death. She can thnk that brief SCOTUS window for turning over the death penalty. Everyone after that window is on death row.
Tex Watson’s prison life was so hard he had conjugals and fathered kids.
geez....by your logic , why punish anyone
it’s all about the afterlife.
sorry I know you mean well but i ain’t buying it
we still have to deal with living realities here on earth till our time comes
You’ve got to be kidding.
Let’s just forgive everyone for everything.
Good lord.
Your’s is not the message I got from the Bible....the whole Bible.
What denomination are you guys?
And as a Christian known to you. I am siding with you my Jewish friend.
The logic espoused by these handful of good works Christians here is simply the soft version.
Not what a lot of us believe.
The meek may inherit the earth and all that but for now the rest of us have to deal with the realities.
God can have mercy on me for being a vengeful hardass when it's all said and done.
I cannot believe any of that. Note how they make a connection between being saved and redemption from worldly authority. As a Christian I can attest that Christ was pretty clear on that which is that we are still beholden to earthly law.
And if salvation is so obvious down the road for these maniacs, then what the heck difference is it how they die anyhow?
Man...I tell ya...so many Christians have jumped ship about personal responsibility and firmness of thought and shame. Now it's all about being nice and building Habitat Houses.
That's an illusion.
Happy Fourth dear....I really appreciate how you elucidated this. Well done.
If there was real justice she would have been executed at least 35 years ago.
Show her the same degree of mercy she and her cohorts showed their victims.
Let her rot to death in a cold, dark prison cell.
Amen....I’m embarrassed my this well meaning but misguided Christian insight.
Southern Baptist all my life more or less.
Amen brother...and if it were, Christ woulda taken Lucifer up on the repeated offers.
Polanksi just missed it as did Steve McQueen in a roundabout way.
Manson sent them there thinking they were going to kill Terry Melcher and some other guy but they had moved.
He was mad they did not appreciate his audition.
Prison. But knowing California she’ll get out.
I’m sittin’ with you guys.
I will never understand why so many apparently sane people think that the Manson Family's behavior should serve as a guidepost for ours.
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