Leslie Van Houten (of Manson Family infamy) may be paroled
September 7, 2017 8:39 AM   Subscribe

Gov. Jerry Brown now has a 120-day period to affirm, reverse or take no action on the decision. In his 2009 book 'Role Models', John Waters included a chapter concerning his relationship with Van Houten that I found very interesting.
posted by mr. digits (30 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Because she has been a model prisoner, Van Houten's attorneys have argued that it's time she be released. Many others, including the families of the victims, oppose her release.

On what grounds? This is a major problem with our prisons - rehabilitation can be easily stymied by people who rely on emotional response to win their argument.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:43 AM on September 7, 2017 [20 favorites]


What social benefit do we gain by keeping a senior citizen in prison this long?

With due respect to the families of the victims, their concerns are not the only ones in play. Prison is a societal tool, not a personal one.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:49 AM on September 7, 2017 [23 favorites]


I believe that Deterrence and Retribution are poor bases upon which to establish a penal system, with Rehabilitation and Segregation both being reasonable goals.

I also consider some crimes heinous enough that, unless committed in a state of mind where their grasp of reality is fundamentally broken, their crime was not only against an individual, but against society itself. Therefore, a permanent segregation from the society is reasonable.

This crime was not a crime of passion, a crime seeking profit, or a crime seeking revenge, it was a crime predicated upon sparking a race war, and the crime was not only against the La Bianca family, but against our society.

I think our society has a reasonable interest in saying that such people must be permanently disallowed from rejoining it. In another era, I would consider exile an acceptable punishment for this particular crime. Nowadays, that's not feasible, and I believe Van Houten should remain in jail for the remainder of her life.
posted by tclark at 9:03 AM on September 7, 2017 [15 favorites]


I've only read the first two sections of this, but it's really good so far. I like how much he talks about how he initially had this sort of "wow, this is trashy and transgressive!!!!" flippant attitude toward the murders and regrets that. So far, I feel like it's a morally complex piece about what happens when someone really, truly does something terrible - how should blame be apportioned? How do you go on and try to be a good person when you've done something that isn't forgivable?

Of course, if she'd been a man and murdered her ex, she would have been out of prison for most of her life by now.

I think the Manson case is one of those that gets blown up into tabloid fodder not only because it has all these sleazy angles but because it's morally confounding and the easiest way to deal with that is to turn it into a black-and-white, put-them-away-for-life story, because otherwise there are all kinds of really troubling questions about free will and cults and how much rationality you can retain in scary circumstances.

Humans are really fallible, even good human beings in good circumstances, never mind weak or traumatized people who are in a bad situation. If I ran the world, it would basically be constructed around fail-safes to keep people from being terrible.
posted by Frowner at 9:05 AM on September 7, 2017 [11 favorites]


I'm fairly technocratic when it comes to things like parole and the justice system in general, in that this sort of thing should be judged by as impartial as possible experts and emotional responses should play little part in it, even when these come from victims or family/friends of victims.

Parole should be judged on two things, in my opinion:

1) has she been rehabilitated
2) Is there any danger of recidivism

If 1 is yes and 2 is no, then she should be paroled, if not, not.

From the summation of her crimes in the first article and her spoken regret about them, it seems she should be paroled. I disagree with tclark above that her crimes particularly were so heinous she lost all possibility of parole.. You could make the case for Manson as the mastermind behind it, but not so much for a follower who was only 19 years old at the time.

(Aside to the original poster: a bit more context in the body of the post might've been useful, as not everybody is that familiar with the Manson Family murders as to recognise the name of Van Houten or has post titles on by default.)
posted by MartinWisse at 9:34 AM on September 7, 2017 [13 favorites]


This crime was not a crime of passion, a crime seeking profit, or a crime seeking revenge, it was a crime predicated upon sparking a race war, and the crime was not only against the La Bianca family, but against our society.

I think our society has a reasonable interest in saying that such people must be permanently disallowed from rejoining it. In another era, I would consider exile an acceptable punishment for this particular crime. Nowadays, that's not feasible, and I believe Van Houten should remain in jail for the remainder of her life.


You're still appealing to emotion here, trying to justify keeping someone who has, by all accounts, renounced their former beliefs and shown to made a genuine effort towards rehabilitation by appealing to an emotional argument that their crime is somehow especially heinous. If you can provide an actual argument that keeping her imprisoned serves some just purpose, then put that up - but this appeal that she's somehow beyond rehabilitation because of one act doesn't stand up.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:36 AM on September 7, 2017 [21 favorites]


jms: "Looking into the future I see the most amazing Tinder profile ever."
posted by doctornemo at 9:37 AM on September 7, 2017


but this appeal that she's somehow beyond rehabilitation because of one act doesn't stand up.
NoxAeternum

Why not? Who are you to decide what arguments regarding this issue are valid or not? You have determined that rehabilitation is the only and overriding concern, but tclark's position, despite your framing, isn't irrational hysteria. The argument is coming from another angle: that society might deem certain acts so terrible that as a policy they should be punished permanently, either as a deterrent or a symbol that society will never tolerate it, regardless of rehabilitation or recidivism.

I'm actually inclined to agree with you on this matter, I just don't like automatically dismissing differing opinions as mere "appeals to emotion".
posted by Sangermaine at 9:41 AM on September 7, 2017 [11 favorites]


I guess appealing to "crimes against society" seems to open more cans of worms than "is this person rehabilitated". What counts as a crime against society? Surely Henry Kissinger has committed them, and what about all those Klan members? Henry Kissinger advised people who committed mass murder in Indonesia and Chile, which seems like a numerical crime against society. Klan members are ideologically against society as it exists today, because they want to murder many of its members.

Also, what if "crime against society" could be construed as "opposing society" only, and anarchists everywhere were jailed for their beliefs?

I mean, we'd all like crimes against society punished pretty severely, but we all have different ideas about what society is and how it is offended by crime.

What remorse and rehabilitation look like are also tricky to establish, but I think those are smaller problems.
posted by Frowner at 9:53 AM on September 7, 2017 [17 favorites]


They didn't even mention rehabilitation because the argument is coming from another angle: that society might deem certain acts so terrible that as a policy they should be punished permanently, either as a deterrent or a symbol that society will never tolerate it.

Yes, this is the same argument used to defend the death penalty, and it's just as much an appeal to emotion there as well. The "deterrent" factor is non-existent, and we already show that society will never tolerate it by the act of making it illegal - what purpose does intensifying that actually serve? If the answer is, as I suspect, "none", then why should we do so?
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:55 AM on September 7, 2017 [10 favorites]


I used to be able to buy her three packs of cigarettes to take back to her cell but now it’s illegal to smoke anywhere in jail in California. What used to feel so old-school-Women Behind Bars-cigarettes-as-money is gone forever. Now I get to buy her three cans of Pepsi! Stylistically, it’s just not the same thing.

-- John Waters, profound sage for our time.
posted by sammyo at 9:57 AM on September 7, 2017 [11 favorites]


(I, for one, would be fine with Henry Kissinger being put behind bars for whatever remains of the rest of his life.)

I'm not sure that Van Houten's crime, specifically, meets the standard for a crime against society or humanity as a whole so bad that it must be punished permanently. But I do believe that there is such a standard and that it can be met in certain extreme cases, such as Kissinger's or, indeed, Manson's.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:01 AM on September 7, 2017 [5 favorites]


(I'd like to see Kissinger tried at the Hague, personally. Leslie Van Houten, however horrible her crime and however much she was responsible for what she did, was obviously at least partly not responsible due to cult stuff and drugs. Kissinger, on the other hand! To me, someone like Leslie Van Houten did a terrible thing, but it obviously wasn't something she sat down and planned in her right mind or intended to profit off of, and it seems like any enjoyment she derived from the crime was very much a product of the cult and drug-taking, and something she has repudiated since she's recovered from those things. It's people who enjoy hurting others and people who sit around cold-bloodedly using politics or economics to hurt and kill people they don't even know - those are the ones that commit crimes against society, in my book.

Also, of course, we live in a society where Trump pardons Arpaio, who is a vile piece of garbage, and this woman - who did something terrible but has spent her life in jail and clearly, consistently repudiates what she did - can't seem to get paroled. I mean, there's no justification for saying she committed a crime against society if Arpaio didn't commit a crime against society.

To tell the truth, I think that society demonstrates its solidity through magnanimity more than cruelty. It's better to treat people the way Breivik is treated in prison than to treat people like the US treats anyone who has the misfortune to be jailed. Breivik is also walking garbage - and he hasn't repented - but by treating him well, society shows that it can rise above the violence/vengeance cycle.
posted by Frowner at 10:14 AM on September 7, 2017 [23 favorites]


Very interesting John Waters writing, thanks for posting.

I disagree with tclark above that her crimes particularly were so heinous she lost all possibility of parole.

After reading the Waters excerpt I'm not sure how one could reasonably agree with that viewpoint, but also, the justice system (long ago) also disagreed with that viewpoint by changing her sentence to life with parole. Except that DAs / parole boards kept acting de facto that's not what had happened with ever more insane reasons and requirements. For example, from part 5:
Patrick Sequira, the new D.A. who took over arguing against Leslie's parole after Stephen Kay's retirement even contended at her last hearing that something seemed suspicious about Leslie going back to college behind bars to get her master's degree in philosophy. He described Antioch University, the struggling college that offered these courses, as a "hotbed of radicalization" and then went on to rail against the classes she would be taking, "Theory of Justice," "Problems of Men," "Democracy in Education," "Origins of Intelligence in Children," as if this curriculum was somehow connected to Leslie's future criminality. "Clearly the inmate has a fascination with philosophy just as she had a fascination with the concepts that the Manson Family embraced," he told the Parole Board accusingly. "If there was true educational intent in changing oneself," he went on to lecture a dumbfounded Leslie who kept her head held high, "you'd think it would be beyond studying philosophy."
posted by advil at 10:15 AM on September 7, 2017 [12 favorites]


Leslie Van Houten has served more time than any Nazi war criminal who was not sentenced to death at Nuremberg. She has served more time that any of the Nazi defendants who were sentenced to life in prison except for Hitler’s deputy, Rudolph Hess, who died in his fortieth year in prison (the exact amount of time Leslie has now served). She’s served more time than Lt. William Calley who was originally sentenced to life in prison for the My Lai massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians.

That context seems to cast some doubt on the hard line approach. Who gets to call these shots? How are such distinctions made?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 10:33 AM on September 7, 2017 [10 favorites]


What counts as a crime against society?

I would consider Kissinger's crimes to be crimes against humanity, and he should be tried in the Hague and punished to the full extent of international law.

But in more common crimes, at the risk of giving an answer that sounds glib, is stated intent. It wasn't a crime of passion, for profit, for revenge, for gain. Its very motive was, basically, terroristic. Motive counts in hate crimes, beating up a guy because he's black carries a worse sentence than beating a guy up who owes you money for a reason. Because motive matters. And I am of the opinion, unpopular as it may be here on MeFi, that an adult who commits a crime with the motive to bring disaster to a society has abdicated from participating in that society.

I contend it's still not a matter of retribution or an appeal to emotion. I think we're in dire need of prison reform, something on the Scandinavian model. Prison should not be a place for danger and mistreatment. It should be a place for rehabilitation, and, for those who commit crimes whose motives are on their very face intended to bring about wider violence and destruction, separation.
posted by tclark at 10:35 AM on September 7, 2017 [3 favorites]


Prison should not be a place for danger and mistreatment. It should be a place for rehabilitation, and, for those who commit crimes whose motives are on their very face intended to bring about wider violence and destruction, separation.

Which means that you're advocating to lock Nelson Mandela up and throw away the key.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:51 AM on September 7, 2017 [3 favorites]


Everything's coming up Milhouse!
posted by klangklangston at 10:55 AM on September 7, 2017 [5 favorites]


I think our society has a reasonable interest in saying that such people must be permanently disallowed from rejoining it. In another era, I would consider exile an acceptable punishment for this particular crime. Nowadays, that's not feasible, and I believe Van Houten should remain in jail for the remainder of her life.

You are describing a sentence of life without parole. This was not the sentence handed down to her by the state of California.

Van Houten's life sentence specifically indicated a future eligibility for parole. Abstract theories of justice have no bearing on whether or not she should be released back into society. The only criteria that should factor into the decision are extent of rehabilitation and risk of recidivism, both of which seem to weigh pretty heavily in her favor.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:27 AM on September 7, 2017 [9 favorites]


The murders were almost fifty years ago, now. I'm 1000% not saying that the circumstances meant she shouldn't have been in prison or anything like that, but during her retrial she was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. That was deemed to be the appropriate sentence. She's done everything that's supposed to be necessary for parole to be on the table except, as far as I can tell, providing some kind of adequate narrative for what she originally did, because there wasn't one. But that was already true when she was sentenced. To deny her parole for that does not, to me, seem at all appropriate. Parole as a system should not exist for some number of people to get to exercise emotional discretion over the eventual outcome of a case in a way that cannot be influenced by anything that happens after sentencing. If someone is going to be given a sentence where parole is an option, then it is not justice for people to later say that parole is impossible because of the nature of the original crime. The nature of the original crime should have been accounted for in the original sentencing.

Manson, by contrast, is only parole-eligible because of the loss of the death penalty in California--and even there, every time, they've been able to come up with perfectly sensible reasons why he shouldn't be granted parole. Not because of what happened before he went to prison, but because of everything that happened afterwards, his current behavior and attitudes. That's the parole system working the way it should. This isn't.
posted by Sequence at 11:31 AM on September 7, 2017 [19 favorites]


Manson also has a rap sheet a mile long...he's spent far more time in prison than not. Not so for his followers. She should be released. Otherwise, the offer of parole is meaningless.
posted by agregoli at 11:41 AM on September 7, 2017 [5 favorites]


A woman involved in mass murder is so rare that it seems disingenuous to hang the (in-) consistency of penal policy on this case. Is it that surely this, if anything is where we start calibrating our standards of rehabilitation, or is it possible that given the existing incarceration practices that she has satisfied all of the criteria that are supposedly in play?
posted by rhizome at 11:44 AM on September 7, 2017


Everything's coming up Milhouse!

I hadn't heard that phrase in a while, then two friends of mine used it just in the last few days. Everything must indeed be coming up Milhouse.

I read the Waters piece back when Role Models came out and I'm inclined to agree that, except as an example, I can't see much point in keeping Van Houten imprisoned, especially when others on Team Manson have already been paroled.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:45 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]


I am of the opinion, unpopular as it may be here on MeFi, that an adult who commits a crime with the motive to bring disaster to a society has abdicated from participating in that society.


I think that you also have to give some thought to whether or not the plan had any chance of actually sparking a race war. Would you want her to stay in jail if her crime had been intended to bring Cthulhu back? Is there even the slightest hint that Van Houten has been working on a plan for a more plausible race war? (By comparison, a fellow Mansonite, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, who tried to assassinate Gerald Ford, was paroled in 2009.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:54 PM on September 7, 2017 [4 favorites]


an adult who commits a crime with the motive to bring disaster to a society has abdicated from participating in that society

I would argue, from rather extensive knowledge of Ms. Van Houten's mindset, having known her on a close personal basis for several years, that this was not her motive. This was Charlie's motive. She was along for the ride, his ride, because she was a vulnerable 19-year-old under the sway of a dynamic cult leader and drugs. Her motive was to gain his approval. This is how cults operate.
posted by Dilemma at 4:32 PM on September 7, 2017 [15 favorites]


"If there was true educational intent in changing oneself," he went on to lecture a dumbfounded Leslie who kept her head held high, "you'd think it would be beyond studying philosophy."

I just ... no.
posted by Barack Spinoza at 4:51 PM on September 7, 2017 [4 favorites]


He described Antioch University, the struggling college that offered these courses, as a "hotbed of radicalization"

My very Republican friend's daughter attends Antioch. I must warn him.
posted by scalefree at 8:08 PM on September 7, 2017 [2 favorites]


Which means that you're advocating to lock Nelson Mandela up and throw away the key.

Or closer to home, MLK.
posted by scalefree at 8:10 PM on September 7, 2017


OK, great, can we all now stop comparing a white woman involved in a crass, vicious, murderous plot to start a race war in America to the most important black liberationists of the 20th century? It's cold-sweat nauseating, it's viscerally wrong. Especially since whether she's let out or not really won't make a damn bit of difference to the typical victims of the American judicial system and how hard and fast they get chewed up.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 5:46 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]


OK, great, can we all now stop comparing a white woman involved in a crass, vicious, murderous plot to start a race war in America to the most important black liberationists of the 20th century?

I had no intention of comparing them, apologies if that's what came across. My point was that the suggestion that "an adult who commits a crime with the motive to bring disaster to a society has abdicated from participating in that society" is an exceedingly broad mandate subject to abuse when an unjust executive holds power & wants to silence those seeking to end its injustice. Even if you grant that the objective is reasonable, encoding it in law is fraught with peril for misuse against those least deserving it.
posted by scalefree at 2:03 PM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


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