Rumor has it that Susan Atkins is dying

[honeymom]

Anyone who is sentenced to a prison term could potentially DIE of something in prison, especially if they get so many years (or life without parole) that the chances are extremely slim that they'd be released before dying. So, should everyone in prison be let out if they become ill and it looks like they're going to die?

If it is a terminal illness and the prison cannot treat them, the prisons don't always have a choice.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

This isn't about the prison initiating a release because they can't treat her. It's about Susan Atkins wanting a "compassionate release" so she can be with her family when she dies. She's not saying she can get better care someplace else. She IS dying. Prisons have hospitals. Let her stay and die there.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Former Manson family member Susan Atkins has requested a "compassionate release" from prison because she has less than six months to live, a California prisons spokeswoman said Friday.

So again, my question...should there be compassionate releases for everyone who's dying in prison and prefers to die with their families? People die while still prisoners all the time. That's what serving life, or some other long term means...that you'll die in prison.

 

[Deb in IA]

Actually, I think prisons have infirmaries. When a prisoner needs inpatient care, they are admitted to our hospital, and they have a guard with them at all times.

Yes, it is expensive. But costs should not be the only thing determining her continued imprisonment.

I am all for Susan Atkins receiving the standard care for her brain cancer. I have never said that she should be allowed to be in pain or be denied treatment.

I just think she should not be released. She should remain a prisoner until she dies.

 

[Sandy V.]

This isn't about the prison initiating a release because they can't treat her. It's about Susan Atkins wanting a "compassionate release" so she can be with her family when she dies. She's not saying she can get better care someplace else. She IS dying. Prisons have hospitals. Let her stay and die there.

That's the gist of it for me as well. Provide her medical service in a confined setting. Her family can visit her as the prison regulations allow.

The Manson victims weren't given the "compassion" Atkins requests for herself. There's no legitimate reason she should be accorded something she and the other murder participants withheld to those who begged for their lives.

 

[sarahlovesmickey]

wow! didn't know who she was until I googled her. What a sick woman she was. I don't care if she dies a painful death. Why should she get pain meds. or even be treated? Her victims did not get compassion from her. Sick, just sick.........

 

[lulugirl]

People die while still prisoners all the time. That's what serving life, or some other long term means...that you'll die in prison.

This sums up my feelings as well.
I recently re-read the book Helter Skelter, the brutality of her crimes is fresh in my mind. I have zero compassion for the woman, in fact for her to even ask for "compassionate release" is absurd IMO.

 

[honeymom]

Is the compassion for her or for her family? I haven't seen that answered either.

As I said, I'd like to see her die in prison. But, I also know that families of criminals are often victims, too. She will die one way or the other and it seems like it will be a slow death. I don't take glee in death one way or the other, but let us just say it is her karma .

 

[crz4mm2]

Actually, I think prisons have infirmaries. When a prisoner needs inpatient care, they are admitted to our hospital, and they have a guard with them at all times.

Yes, it is expensive. But costs should not be the only thing determining her continued imprisonment.

I am all for Susan Atkins receiving the standard care for her brain cancer. I have never said that she should be allowed to be in pain or be denied treatment.

I just think she should not be released. She should remain a prisoner until she dies.

 

[TDC Nala]

The former members of the Manson group come up for parole occasionally and none of them have ever achieved it.

I wrote this earlier and it's not quite true. There was a guy named Steve Grogan who was convicted for the murder of Donald "Shorty" Shea, which was carried out by Manson and several male Family members in late August 1969. He was paroled in 1985. He remains the only Manson Family murderer to be paroled.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

Release denied. Good.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/15/release.denied/index.html

Ailing Manson follower denied release from prison


(CNN) -- Susan Atkins, a terminally ill former Charles Manson follower convicted in the murder of actress Sharon Tate, on Tuesday was denied a compassionate release from prison.

Susan Atkins, left, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten walk to court in 1970.

Atkins, 60, has been diagnosed with brain cancer and has had a leg amputated, her attorney said. In June, she requested the release, available to terminally ill inmates with less than six months to live.

The California Board of Parole Hearings' decision -- posted Tuesday on its Web site -- came after a public hearing on Atkins' request. It means the request will not be forwarded to the Los Angeles Superior Court that sentenced Atkins.

The court would have had the final say on Atkins' release.

Her attorney, Eric P. Lampel, called the parole board's decision "unfortunate."

"[The board] ignored the vast majority of evidence presented," Lampel said. "There was a huge amount of pro-compassionate release testimony from many witnesses. It apparently fell on deaf ears."

Known within the Manson Family as Sadie Mae Glutz, Atkins and four others were convicted in connection with the deaths of five people, including Tate, in August 1969.

According to historical accounts of the murder, Atkins stabbed Tate, who was eight months pregnant, and scrawled the word "pig" in blood on the door of the home the actress shared with director Roman Polanski.

By her own admission, Atkins held Tate down and rejected her pleas for mercy, stabbing the pregnant woman 16 times.

Atkins' request roused long-dormant memories of the two-day killing spree that terrorized Los Angeles and left seven people dead. It polarized those who were involved in the case -- and even those who weren't -- over whether she should die behind bars.

Atkins told a 1993 parole board that Tate pleaded for her unborn child's life as she held her down.

"She asked me to let her baby live," Atkins said. "... I told her I didn't have any mercy on her."

Three of Tate's houseguests were also slain by the killers, as was a teenager visiting the home's caretaker in his cottage out back. Atkins was also convicted in the earlier murder of music teacher Gary Hinman.

One of the first people Atkins confessed to was Virginia Graham, who shared a cell with her before investigators determined the Manson Family was responsible for the murders. Graham said last month she believed Atkins should die in prison.

"She showed that poor woman absolutely no mercy, none," Graham said. "So why should anybody show her mercy at this time?"

Sharon Tate's sister, Debra, has staunchly opposed Atkins' release. "She will be set free when judged by God," Debra Tate has said. "It's important that she die in incarceration."

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said Monday he was strongly opposed to the release, saying in a letter to the board it would be "an affront to people of this state, the California criminal justice system and the next of kin of many murder victims."

Cooley noted in his letter that Atkins was initially sentenced to death, like others in the Manson Family, including its leader, Charles Manson. Their sentences were commuted to life in prison in 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty laws as they were written at the time.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he was also opposed to releasing Atkins. "I don't believe in [compassionate release]," the governor told reporters. "I think that they have to stay in, they have to serve their time."

Even if Atkins is dying, Schwarzenegger said, "Those kinds of crimes are just so unbelievable that I'm not for the compassionate release."

Earlier, Suzan Hubbard, director of adult prisons in California, also recommended against granting Atkins' request.

Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Atkins and other members of the Manson Family, said he supported her release, if only to save the state money. Through Monday, the cost for Atkins' medical care since she was hospitalized March 18 totaled more than $1.15 million, and the costs for guarding her hospital room are more than $308,000, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

Terminally ill inmates rarely are allowed compassionate release, records show. In 2007, 60 such requests were made to the department, Thornton has said. Ten were approved.

Atkins, who has been incarcerated since 1971, is California's longest-serving female inmate. According to a Web site maintained by her husband and attorney, James Whitehouse, she is now a born-again Christian. During her incarceration, the site says, Atkins worked to help at-risk youth, violent crime victims and homeless children, among others. The Web site does not mention Atkins' illness.

Lampel said last month Atkins is paralyzed on one side.

"She can talk a little bit," Lampel said. "She can't sit up in bed without assistance, and obviously she can't walk around because she's an amputee."

Atkins has expressed remorse for her crimes. "I know the pain I caused Mrs. Tate," she said at a parole board hearing in 1985.

ln May, authorities dug for buried bodies at the Inyo County, California, ranch where Manson and his followers once lived, after police became aware that testing had indicated human remains might be buried there. Nothing was found, authorities said

 

[Disney Doll]

I agree with the decision not to release her.

I see no reason to be compassionate to someone who murders someone.

Life in prison means that...life in prison. As far as the expense...well, she's been in prison for 37 years, so even if she was released, she'd probably still be on a governement healthcare program (Medicaid or Medicare of she's old enough). Either way, we're paying for it, so she can stay right where she is.

 

[Deb in IA]

Good.

 

[In a hurry]

Fair and reasonable.

 

[akhenaten]

she showed no compassion to sharon tate and her baby....
seems like a correct decision to me....

 

[tinkntraining]

Thank goodness the justice system worked in this case. Sorry it didn't work before CA repealed the death penalty. May be cruel, but I won't lose any sleep over the thought that a convicted murderer will take her last, raspy breath in as a prisoner, in the presence of a security guard, rather than surrounded by the ones she loves. I won't say that I hope it's painful, but if the doctors can't get the morphine pump to work, oh well.

 

[Disney Doll]

I wouldn't advocate letting her suffer, basically because I am a nurse and must care for a patient regardless of my personal feelings, but prisons do have infirmaries where she can be treated like any other terminal cancer patient would be treated...pain meds, IVs etc. as necessary.

Plus, if there is something they cannot provide for her, they can send her to the hospital to be cared for...she'd be under guard, but it is not unheard of.

 

[blitzen2k5]

My grandmother died of brain cancer. It took 2 years. And she was in pain the entire time. In and out of hospitals. The really bad part was the last 3 months she was alive. She prayed near constantly, when she was awake mentally, for God to take her. Quite literally begged and cried for 3 three months straight until her voice was lost.

I am sorry but I wouldnt wish that on anyone. Not even Susan Atkins. Get Kevorkian in there and let her choose.

Blitz

 

[Aisling]

I believe in compassion, yes, even for murderers, but giving her pain meds and a clean bed is compassion enough for this woman. When I read she was asking for a "compassionate release", I thought OMG is she serious???? Is she insane from her illness? If she's sane, it just goes to show what kind of person she is, unremorseful, selfish, and ballsy!

I'm not vindictive by nature, and I believe in relieving her pain, but she deserves to be locked up, brain tumor and all. Who does she think she is?? I'm so glad she was denied. It would be a mockery to her victims and the justice system if she were released to "die surounded peacefully by her family".

 

[darlak]

I believe in compassion, yes, even for murderers, but giving her pain meds and a clean bed is compassion enough for this woman. When I read she was asking for a "compassionate release", I thought OMG is she serious???? Is she insane from her illness? If she's sane, it just goes to show what kind of person she is, unremorseful, selfish, and ballsy!

I'm not vindictive by nature, and I believe in relieving her pain, but she deserves to be locked up, brain tumor and all. Who does she think she is?? I'm so glad she was denied. It would be a mockery to her victims and the justice system if she were released to "die surounded peacefully by her family".

Gotta say I'm with you on this one Aisling.

 

[Deb in IA]

I do agree.


She should be given standard care and treatment. Not freedom.