Charles Manson, age 82, is 'seriously ill' and has been taken to a hospital. What purpose was served keeping him locked up for 48 years?

What purpose? How ‘bout keeping him from killing more people? Uh, yeah. That’s a good one, huh? :-)

I am not understanding this question completely. He’s brutally killed 9 people and he led a screwed up cult. They prevented deaths by locking him up. He was mentally insane and they didn’t want him on the public streets. I’m not trying to be rude, but I saw your question and was confused…

@Nostromo – I was thinking the other direction – why didn’t California make an exception and execute him?

He was sentenced originally to the death penalty but California repealed that after he was sentenced. So it was commuted to life in prison. He deserved to die in my opinion. He should never be allowed out of prison to kill again. Even as late as last year, he had a follower that was willing to marry him while he was in prison. Was she even willing to kill for him too?

If you’re going to make exceptions and execute some prisoners, where do you draw the line? You either have the death penalty, or you do not. You can’t have a ‘well this guy is very bad, so we’ll just kill him’ situation.

@Earthbound_Misfit – if you look at the answers to some previous Fluther questions, I am in the minority here, in that I support the death penalty.

The man obviously needed to be separated from society and as California discontinued the death penalty, confinement was the only other choice.

@elbanditoroso, I don’t really care that you support the death penalty. In California, it was repealed and his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He will have pretty much served that. So your question is moot. He wasn’t imprisoned to do anything other than a. punish him and b. keep him away from those he could harm or influence in order to get them to cause harm. Why should he receive a different punishment to anyone else serving life for horrific crimes? You either have the death penalty or you do not. You can’t have a blurred line.

I do not support the death penalty and I avoided going down the path of making this about whether the death penalty is right or wrong. I focused purely on whether there should have been an exception in Charles Manson’s case.

If you want to debate the death penalty, you need to ask that question.

Typically if a state has banned the death penalty the only way an exception would be made to execute someone would be if that person committed a serious federal crime (political assassination) Then the government would override that state’s law and execute the person if that was the sentence.

As a warning to other nuts. That they will be locked up too.

@SergeantQueen Although they did not execute Sirhan Sirhan. He was the person that killed senator Robert Kennedy.

@chyna Yeah, not every federal crime ended in execution. Do you know why they didn’t execute him?

oops sorry- I got off topic asking that question.. You don’t have to answer, I don’t know how to delete answers.

They did away with the death penalty in California.

Sirhan Sirhan’s sentence was also commuted to life in prison in 1972. I would say Sirhan Sirhan was just lucky to have been affected by the 1972 decision that abolished the death penalty in California. Someone would have to look at what the exceptions existed (if any) during the period in 1972 when the death penalty in California was considered unconstitutional and when it was reinstated.

I agree wth @Earthbound_Misfit. If you don’t have capital punishment, you don’t make exceptions. And Charles Manson shouldn’t have been paroled so life in prison was the answer.

I’m a supporter of the death penalty, as long as the crime has been proven without a doubt.

Sometimes though, I prefer someone get a life sentence. We’re all going to die. I’d rather some people rot for their crimes and die in prison. Manson is one of those such people. Let him rot…

I remember one of his cult members long before she joined. It is all too sick and painful.

The world would have been better without him to start with.

Charles Manson did not actually kill anyone. He simply conspired with others to do. He had the ability to convince emotionally disturbed, vulnerable people to do his bidding, and ordered them to commit the murders.

For the record, I’m among those opposed to the death penalty. From a morality standpoint, I feel that to sentence a murderer to be put to death brings the State (whichever governmental unit) down to the same level as the criminal.

On another level, a lifetime of imprisonment seems to me to be worse than death. The convict will awaken every morning knowing where they are and why they’re there.

On a strictly practical level, there would be no more “oops, we killed the wrong one!” executions.

There was no other choice.

The only purpose I see is to waste a huge pile of money keeping that subhuman slime alive for so long.

Immediately after the trial they should have executed the MF’er!

For the record, California did NOT repeal the death penalty. In 1972 the SCOTUS deemed it unconstitutional because it was applied in “arbitrary and capricious ways”.

And, Manson did not actually kill anyone; his followers did at his urging. Patricia Krenwinkel is up for parole, but the decision was postponed last week for a few weeks. One of the other women was granted parole by the Parole Board but that was overruled by the Governor.

Manson isn’t pure evil, but he’s fucking close.

I still laugh, though, when I think about someone I used to know, who interviewed Manson. Very funny story.

The justice system works on the basic principle that you do what you say you do. If you sentence someone to life with no chance of parole then you kinda have to do that. Otherwise it stops bing a deterrent.

The last time California executed someone was 2006. They didn’t abolish it. They just stopped doing quite so much.

If I remember correctly Charles Manson was not convicted of murder in the Tate-La Bianca murders. He wasn’t even there. I don’t think he was ever tied or convicted of any other murders.

I am against the death penalty 100%. I’m glad he hasn’t been put to death in my name (The state). And as far as all the money spent housing him all these years…well, I’d never put a dollar amount on someone’s life. That’s just inhuman.

Manson is right where he belongs. He serves as an exhibit of inexplicable evil driven by superior charismatic intelligence. For me, there is no more clear cut case of straight up insanity than Charles Manson. I think it would be a waste to make an exception of Manson by sanctioning his execution. The cruel and unusual punishment I would be tempted to approve is Charlie as a lab rat for lifelong studies on insanity. Caged evil of such magnitude should be picked and pried at til we better understand it.

It is difficult to make sense of what Manson did. What motivation was there for the murders? How could he convince others to execute them? Do any of them feel remorse? I am opposed to the death penalty. By virtue of being human, it was right not to kill him, but he sure does test my convictions.

^^Manson’s motivations for the murders were that he thought if he could kill a few prominent white people and leave evidence on the scene that pointed to the black community, there would be a race war that would spread throughout the US and possibly the world, Europeans and Asians against Africans. He and his clan would hide out in the desert until all was exhausted, then rule the survivors.

The Tate murders were partially a revenge killing. Two birds with one stone. Manson wanted Doris Day’s son, a record producer, dead for not recording Manson’s music after he’d promised to do so. When Manson had met DD’s son at the beach home of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, DD’s son lived in the house that director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate had moved into in the interim. So, Manson’s minions killed the wrong people, but still served the purpose of the revolution.

The LaBianca murders were purely random, chosen because it was a big house with a car in the driveway. The LaBianca murders were because Manson didn’t get the violent popular reaction that he expected. He was going to continue until he did.

This was what he called Helter Skelter—the racial war and resultant regime under Manson. He got the idea from listening to the Beatle’s song Helter Skelter over and over again while tripping. He interpreted the song as describing all the above, and a personal message to him from the Beatles that he would be the leader. He convince his followers of this after a prolonged regime of acid, then sent them out to do their duty.

Nuts, huh? Nuts Redneck style.

As to keeping Manson behind bars, he has notched more than 100 rules violations on his record, including possession of a cell phone and a weapon, as well as assault and threatening California correctional staff while in prison, and he has never shown or expressed any remorse.

It keeps him from killing anyone else.

The prison system makes money by keeping him incarcerated. Their budget depends upon the number of prisoners and the level of supervision required. Without prisoners there is no need for Correctional Officers, System Administrators, Food Services, Resident Monitors, Mental Health Clinicians, Right of Way Agents, Lawyers, Public Defenders, Sergeants, Wardens, Contract Writers, Purchasing Agents, Sanitation Workers, Plumbers, Electricians, etc. all being paid by the state/Fed in a ratio dependent upon the number of prisoners.

Here is a side note indicative of how bad the system is can be:
A certain prison was paid by the state to offer job training in the form of computer literacy classes as part of a “Rehabilitate not Incarcerate” program. A room was set up and banks of computers were installed. (paid for by the state).
Prisoners were regularly escorted to the room for an hour of training. Meticulous attendance records were maintained and reported to the state and regular reimbursement payments were received.
Unfortunately there was no training. Once the prisoners reached the class room they sat in total silence with one supervisor sitting at a desk in front reading. Most of the computers were never turned on. Talking was not allowed so even if an inmate knew how to do it, he could not tell the others.
A human rights organization got credit for starting such a program. The Warden got credit for helping rehabilitate prisoners, The prisoners got to leave their cells for an hour or two, The state DOJ got its budget increased to pay for this program.
And the taxpayers paid for it all.

I wonder if Manson attended any computer classes.

After the brutal, senseless murders he orchestrated, this evil man never had another moment of freedom the rest of his life. Plus whatever hope he may have had that he would one day be paroled never materialized. That combination—no hope and hope unfulfilled—made his time in prison, for me, quite the right punishment.

And the lesson to us is: Never give a redneck acid.