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 ...
She should die in prison. She worked hard for it, she deserves it, now let her experience it.
That would have been my answer, had you not beat me to it.
In solitary. Without meds. Or food. Or water. Period.
I read the family as a teen and it skeered the F out of me.
Clockwork orange? well that was just fiction.
The Family was chilling
She was ordered to prison to await her death, and rightly so.
Let that be her fate.
Tex Watson grew up here. like 25 mi away in Copeville.
The town has never shed his shadow
She’s been sentenced to life in prison, yes?
Then she gets out when her life is over.
Yes, and how much thought was given to Sharon Tate’s family and the other victims of these sick murderous people. Now is the time to think about them and not the criminals.
But her sentence is LIFE.
When the life is done, the sentence is over.
When she reaches the hospice stage, life ain’t done.
Let her have as much mercy as she showed to Sharon Tate and her baby. I say let her die in prison, where she should stay until she goes to Hell.
Life in Prison means she dies in prison. Sorry, toots.
"...one more point about Christian forgiveness ... We believe in redemption..., but redemption does not exempt people from the temporal consequences of their actions. Merely going to the confessional, for instance, does not mean a murderer should not receive their just punishment. Christians hope and pray for the redemption of all souls, including that of Atkins (and Manson, for that matter) — but that essentially remains between Atkins and God and has little to do with the question of release."
in the rush to condemn & hold mercy from the guilty, is it possible we have fallen short in our own willingness to be merciful at all ??
miss atkins is dying of brain cancer. if she hasn’t sought & received the forgiveness & mercy of GOD in Christ for her crimes or character. her life imprisonment is only a sad beginning to a terrifying eternal destiny.
perhaps we should hold off on our armchair meting out of punishment & pray that she won’t be another statistic swallowed up in hell.
Put her on hard labor.
Life in prison should mean death in prison.
Stabbed to death in prison.
Prison.
One of my in-laws was related by marriage to the Tate family. It had devastating long-term effects on Sharon’s parents and siblings. There is no way on earth that woman should be let out of prison.
I vote PRISON !!!
If Sharon Tate says it’s okay, I’m cool with it.
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