Susan Atkins

The Los Angeles Times reports that Susan Atkins is now being considered for "compassionate release" from the California prison system, due to what is supposed to be a terminal medical condition.

If you were not born before the early 1970's, you might not recall that Susan Atkins is one of the Charles Manson Gang who committed several brutal murders. She is California's female prisoner with the most seniority, having been incarcerated since her 1969 arrest.

I have mixed feelings about this so-called "compassionate release." Atkins didn't just commit murder on a single occasion. She actively and zealously participated in at least three brutal and grisly murder incidents. She has little to show to recommend compassionate treatment.

The Bloomberg article by Charlotte Porter states that Atkins "was sentenced to life in prison." What neither the Los Angeles Times article nor the Bloomberg article mention is that Atkins was initially sentenced to death in 1971, but that Pollyanna's sob sisters on the bench of the California Supreme Court invalidated all pre-1972 California death sentences a year later in the Anderson case. By all rights, she shouldn't even be alive today!

But if indeed, as reported, she has brain cancer and her leg in fact has been amputated, then she arguably no longer presents any threat to society, and allowing her to go out and die with her family would provide a small modicum of relief to the taxpayers of California.