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Sicko Susan Atkins & The Quality of Mercy

July 3rd, 2008
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

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atkinsss.jpg

Beyond Charles Manson himself, Susan Atkins was the most public face of his murderous family during the 1970-71 Tate-LaBianca trial. She bragged about stabbing the pregnant Sharon Tate and laughed when details of the slaying were presented in court.

Her death sentence was later changed to life imprisonment and now Atkins, who says she has found God and her sins have been forgiven, is asking to be released from prison because she is terminally ill.

Should she be?



This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 am and is filed under Celebrities, Crime, Law & Legal Matters. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 7 Comments

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    Holy crap! What a picture Shaun has found to illustrate this post!!!
    Talk about a Face of Evil.

    Shaun presents an interesting question here...that goes to the point of T-Steel's posting last week about the death penalty for child rape.

    Many posters then advocated (real) Life Imprisonment as a just alternative.

    The Atkins case illustrates a central problem with this alternative. Years pass...memories fade...and inevitably there will come the pleas for mercy in even the most appalling cases.

    I was struck by this sentence in the article Shaun links: "Since then, Susan Atkins has led an exemplary life in prison."

    How hard is it to lead an "exemplary life in prison"? One's freedom of action is very limited, after all. It is easy to say that one has found God...and lots of time to write to bleeding hearts on the outside about it.

    So to all those who are opposed to the Death Penalty (of which I am one, I think)...Should "Life Imprisonment" really be LIFE imprisonment?
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    If she switches places with Dick Cheney, then yes. Cheney has the blood of thousands on his oil-coated hands-she has one. Otherwise, make peace with your God.
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    To tie this article in with current events, see how Bernadine Dohrn, wife of Bill Ayers and friends/neighbors of Barack Obama, feels about Susan Atkins.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqcMNA1DGI&eurl...
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    I've often wondered how the wife of my neighbor that I lived next to 5 years ago felt about the girlfriend of a psychotic spurned musician from the 60s.
    /snark

    Because we have such harsh penalties for all ranges of lawbreaking in this country, the value of "life imprisonment" for the truly heinous crimes has gotten diluted. You can get life for having 10 pictures of child pornography, is that on a par with mass premeditated murder?
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    I'm oblivious to the real details, but my thought is that I'm glad she's found some sort of peace and she can remain in that peace behind bars.
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    Yes, life imprsonment should be life imprisonment, in the best of all possible worlds.
    Our judicial system is not he best of all possible worlds, however.
    Unlike Atkins, it could be a case of someone originally convicted as a teenager of having sex with another teenager.

    After decades of harsh "'lock 'em up and throw away the keys" conservative policies, it's hard to find where to go after harsh-more harsh-and harsher-still sentencing.
    I remember reading some studies years ago, showing that the best deterrence isn't a harch sentence. It's the swift and certain delivering of a just sentence. .

    We have a lot of work to do on sentences being just, not dependent on how much money the accused can spend for good defense lawyers.
    Then the sentences could be swift, certain, and meaningful.
    Life sentences, if just, could once again be the toughest possible punishment, and irrevocable.

    As it is, who knows about Atkins? She deerves to sit out her sentence, but will it mean naything where she dies?
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    A normal "life sentence" is not the same thing as a mandated life sentence without possibility of parole. I support putting the latter in place of the death penalty for the most heinous crimes with a supermax prison as the next step if they can't behave in prison. Of course I also believe we should have separate prison facilities for violent and non-violent offenders.
 
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