Do the Manson girls deserve parole?

[LadyTevar]

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was one of the Manson girls, and I recall hearing that part of her parole conditions was that she never try to contact Manson (write, call, visit, whatever). This was partly based on her 1987 escape from Alderson (WV) Women's Prison, where she tried to reach Manson after hearing he had cancer.

[Raw Shark]

Reading that article is what actually got me thinking. The description of the trial there just seemed to be... I guess bad. I mean sure, my knowledge is limited to Wikipedia but reading that made me feel... well not as if they had the wrong guy. More that they really wanted to put him away and were willing to rush things through to make sure. Did I get the wrong impression?

I would imagine that really wanting to put him away was a substantial part of the Prosecution's motivation, especially considering that he was blatantly trolling the court every step of the way, which would piss off anybody, but I can't think of anything especially shady-looking on their part (caveat: I'm going off that same wikipedia article and vague memories of a paper I wrote in college here), and I doubt that they would believe that rushing things would increase the certainty of a conviction compared to taking the time to build a strong case.

Some criticism could be leveled at the Defense for resting against the wishes of the female Defendants, I suppose, but they claim that they had knowledge that the women planned to throw themselves under the bus to save Manson, and felt an ethical obligation as their Defense attorneys to try to protect them, even from themselves, which is something I can get behind. For their trouble, one of them got himself a bad case of perished, too!

I guess I just feel sorry for him. I mean, what's the point of keeping him in prison for so long? Especially if he is as you say a model prisoner.

I fucked up a little on that one, actually - He got busted for drug trafficking in 1997, which I had misremembered as more like 1987. That's not why he's still locked up, though: Like Broomstick said, they're afraid that he's still dangerous, that he still can and would convince other people to kill.

[Vain]

I guess I just feel sorry for him. I mean, what's the point of keeping him in prison for so long? Especially if he is as you say a model prisoner.

I fucked up a little on that one, actually - He got busted for drug trafficking in 1997, which I had misremembered as more like 1987. That's not why he's still locked up, though: Like Broomstick said, they're afraid that he's still dangerous, that he still can and would convince other people to kill.

My understanding is that Manson himself has taken steps to avoid being paroled, up to and including telling prison psychologists and the parole board that he is still dangerous and should not be released. I've heard plenty of speculation as to why that might be, but in any case, if he wants to stay in prison, let him.

[Raw Shark]

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was one of the Manson girls, and I recall hearing that part of her parole conditions was that she never try to contact Manson (write, call, visit, whatever). This was partly based on her 1987 escape from Alderson (WV) Women's Prison, where she tried to reach Manson after hearing he had cancer.

Fromme, in particular, is IMHO fascinating. This is more-or-less just personal speculation here, but I think that the evidence we have vaguely suggests that she was one of, or possibly the only, True Believer(s) in the cult, on whom Manson's personal magnetism was more gravy than meat: an actual fanatic who was already picking up what Manson was putting down when she met him, became the de facto leader of the cult after he was locked up, and never for one second sought parole or said that she was sorry.