Out of time: on releasing incarcerated seniors
the true crime that's worth your time
“Manson follower” Leslie Van Houten is getting closer to fresh air. Per an East Bay Times/AP item from late last week, CA governor Gavin Newsom has announced that he won’t ask state authorities to block parole for Van Houten, who has done more than five decades in prison for the murders of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca.
Newsom is (performatively, in my view) more resigned to this outcome than pushing for it,
In a brief statement, the governor’s office said an appeal was unlikely to succeed.
Newsom is disappointed, the statement said.
“More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal killings, the victims’ families still feel the impact,” the statement said.
because it costs him nothing politically to oppose Van Houten’s release, but said release likely costs him nothing politically either. Van Houten is 73 and, as her attorney notes in the same piece, lacks basic iPhone-era life skills required to raise hell on the outside (I’m paraphrasing), in addition to having seemingly rehabilitated herself with good works behind bars.
But she participated in one of the highest-profile murders of the 20th century; should that matter? Should her age matter? Contemplating the prospect of Jeffrey MacDonald’s compassionate release a couple years ago, I said that at his age, he’s unlikely to repeat his crimes, but it’s a slightly different set of circs (MacDonald, whose speedy-trial rights may have been violated, still claims he didn’t do it, etc. and so on). And then there’s Winnie Ruth Judd, who may finally have scored a pardon in Arizona at age 66 because they could let her go, or they could…watch her escape. For the eighth time.
What’s your take on compassionate, “good-enough time” releases for elderly prisoners? Does the specific case matter? And what’s your favorite tale of a cotton-top parolee who did wreak havoc on the outside? — SDB