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 ...
Amen to that! Thank you for making the distinction.
Prisoners are well known for “finding Jesus”
as a means of getting out early or whatever perks
they can. I did not read the whole thread
but I think this one should die in jail
even if is at tax payer expense.
Are you asking me or the other poster?
I was trying to politely disagree with her interpretation of the Bible. I think she got my point, but didn’t like it much.
Agreed!! Doesn't life in prison without possibility of parole mean just that?
courtesy ping since you were already in the exchange
politeness is a good thing
on this one I get a bit excited, i recall it all like yesterday and i was a bit of a bleary eyed teen myself then and that nightmare was horrific and drove a quick nail in the love, hippie LSD coffin
that was the work of spoiled fried upper middle class girls driven by a maniac and his henchman who were in it for the punani and all addled by way too much Uncle Sidney.
they should have all been killed after being found guilty for what they did to Sharon Tate alone...the horror of that poor girl pleading for her baby
Christianity doesn’t figure in it for me....Satan and his evil does.
Ah, I don’t trust Wiki as a souce, really.
Oh, I know who Dohrn is, and what she stands for, but I didn’t know that she had praised the Manson murders.
What is the matter with people?
Isn’t he dead too? Think he died a few months ago....could be wrong, but I think I remember hearing that.
What article did you get this information from? I would like to read it.
It does seem like she is trying to get out of her punishment anyway that she can, doesn’t it? Why is she ever up for parole, anyway? She got “life without the possibility of parole”...after her death sentence was revoked...when did the possibility of parole enter the picture?
I guess he is alive an kicking! I did the checking that I should have done before I posted my last post...and found out that he is still around.
Susan Atkins was given the death penalty which was later converted to a “life sentence”, well I don’t know about the rest of you all, but a life sentence ends when her life ends.
Let her die in jail, and then take her rotting body and tie it to Chalie’s body so that his rots faster!
I saw it a few years ago but it is readily available and one source to read is here:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/manson/manson25.html
Prison has been her home for the last almost 40 years, so both.
Okay, thank you.
“why punish anyone”
i never said we shouldn’t, legally speaking.
“we still have to deal with living realities here on earth till our time comes”
agreed. have been liscensed to carry a concealed weapon for about 6 yrs now. i hope i never have to use it.
please understand that i am not disagreeing with the sentence meted out by the justice system. i believe in safety & justice for all of us.
i am speaking specifically about our personal feelings towards any person who has been convicted & sentenced. it is our personal judgement[ie finding them guilty & passing our own sentence on her] & condemnation that emotionally disturbs me. not the fact that said felon is incarcerated.
i feel it is possible to hate the evil actions of the wicked while not hating them personally.
if by any turn of events one of us on this board were to be convicted of a crime. & our court plea were guilty. how would we feel if afterwards almost no one were willing to show us any kindness or mercy as a result ??
as we go through life, if we want to be treated with kindness, compassion, mercy or any decent action, then we must be willing to do so unto others, whether they are in prison or out.
AMEN!!!!!!
Was Sharon Tate able to die surrounded by family and friends and in the comfort of her own bed?
Ditto for 1-6 above. The gas chamber 35 years ago would have been better.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
From what I’ve seen, she has been in a hospital for months and it sounds like she will be hospitalized until she dies. We are talking about semantics here.
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