Why life without parole EVER is crueler

The first thing Richard Roszkowski did -- once the jurors left the courtroom -- after hearing the verdict that he was GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY and eligible for the death penalty for slaying his former lover, her daughter and a gardener was fire his public defenders.

[Tiger]

An Eye for and Eye !

[Frank]

Bravo for this article. It's ridiculous that we still have a death penalty in Connecticut. It's such a farce - we spend millions of dollars a year on a punishment we don't even use. And for those who want to shorten the appeals process and execute these individuals right away, just look at the recent exoneration of Kenneth Ireland. He wasn't on death row, but if he were just two years older at the time of the crime of which he was convicted, he would have been eligible for the death penalty. We make too many mistakes to justify hanging onto this broken system.

[Hope]

The ACLU and activist judges have completely destroyed the intent of the death penalty--- to serve as a deterrent to others. The process is too sterile an injection, complete with alcohol wipes. You want reality TV, put these scum bags on Sunday night prime time and either hang em or put them in the chair and make all major networks air it.
However there is no time for that as all the important case work will be involving the prosecution of CIA officers charged with protecting our country. This special prosecution is akin to throwing a flash bang in the room to disorient everyone away from the health care shit pile and to reign the libs in.

[Check your facts]

AMEN!

[Ratso]

lets make cruel the usual punishment

[Rach Tangier]

Atkins did not stab Sharon Tate as proven by the confession of Watson and as she testified to the grand jury (everyone knows she lied about stabbing her x2 due to odd circumstances)- why are you misrepresenting the facts? Next you'll be repeating the Tates latest embellishment - that Susan stabbed her in the neck! She is guilty of holding Sharon down - no more, no less. As a HALO member I encourage conservatives and those fooled by sensational headlines to look further in to this case, in to themselves. Or injustice will pile on tragedy next month.
Statement by Australasian victims group - the Homicide Acceptance Lighthouse Organisation (HALO)
Victim rights group HALO fear that the mythology and the hysteria which have grown up around the Manson murders, dictate that dying Californian inmate Susan Atkins can't receive a fair Parole hearing. And that victims are in for another earful of vengefully motivated horror fiction concerning events. Ethical conduct is sought from media.
HALO believes that fundamental principles of healing, in the aftermath of murder for both homicide victims and society, require that processes of acceptance in regard to the offence and of Justice for the offender, be based upon truth.
Susan Atkins has repeatedly expressed remorse within 17 parole hearings, 27 mental health, and 18 Counsellor reports, done endless soul searching and offered her victims restoration meetings. However, a campaign spawned by professional haters of letters and blogging to
deny this, and to spread a prejudicial web of disinformation. They may slander as inmates have no voice.
Susan Atkins has therefore, and also due to reluctance to minimise events or distress victims by correcting details, been relentlessly impugned by the mass media for "made up" exacerbating factors or crimes she did not commit.
She has variously been accused, by trash journalists within a sensationalising mass media, of stabbing a pregnant woman to death, of slitting her throat or cutting a baby out of her.
She has been held accountable by ill informed Americans for 40 years for stabbing Actress Sharon Tate to death with gorey embellishments,all because she was tired of her begging and pleading. A diabolical crime.
The problem with this, is that none of the accusations in the previous paragraphs are remotely true. They were based on false confessions, made at a time Susan wasn't in her right mind. Irrefutable multiply sourced evidence has since proved beyond doubt that none of the above claims (given impetus by her false confession)are true.
Yet these are the rabble rousing myths that pitchfork waving Americans use to justify denying compassionate Parole to Susan, who is terminally ill. Now characterised forevermore, due to entrenched misconceptions, as a
merciless and brutal hands on killer. Atkins was certainly culpable for her role in the Manson murders, but her role was far less active than commonly believed.
The U.S. media owes all homicide victims around the civilised world an apology, for broadcasting and reinforcing disturbing and fictional accounts of the death of Sharon Tate - well after the full facts were known. Such reports instill horror and bitterness in homicide victims
surviving relatives. And may encourage them to have all sorts of inaccurate fantasies about their own relatives suffering.
It is indecent, insensitive and unethical to seek to increase ratings by dramatising real crimes with fictional horror add ons. Offensive is a word that to already traumatised victims does not even begin to describe the impact.
In serving 40 years Atkins has effectively served the sentence due to the more active offenders (Krenwinkle and Watson, or the crime boss (Charlie Manson). No other offender under the same sentence as her of life "with possibility of Parole", aside from Manson's remain in the
clink. Offenders with similar culpability levels were typically released after 15 years.

[Stop the death penalty]

Hope wrote:

The ACLU and activist judges have completely destroyed the intent of the death penalty--- to serve as a deterrent to others. The process is too sterile an injection, complete with alcohol wipes. You want reality TV, put these scum bags on Sunday night prime time and either hang em or put them in the chair and make all major networks air it.
However there is no time for that as all the important case work will be involving the prosecution of CIA officers charged with protecting our country. This special prosecution is akin to throwing a flash bang in the room to disorient everyone away from the health care **** pile and to reign the libs in.

Sounds like you like killing people. You sound like a total pychopath and future mass murderer who probably belongs on death row yourself.

[BPT]

the writer makes some good points.

[Mr Ticked Off]

Screw the Bleeding hearts. The scum, who are most definitely guilty in the Cheshire home invasion should be be put to death. It's not about deterent. It not about revenge. It's about kill; you die. The big diatribe regarding the Tate-LaBianca murders by the Mason cult. Whether directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of of another, in my book, those culpable threw out their right to life. God forbid - if someone takes out any of my loved ones; death to them. END OF STORY!

[Teabaggers Suck]

Mr Ticked Off wrote:

Screw the Bleeding hearts. The scum, who are most definitely guilty in the Cheshire home invasion should be be put to death. It's not about deterent. It not about revenge. It's about kill; you die. The big diatribe regarding the Tate-LaBianca murders by the Mason cult. Whether directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of of another, in my book, those culpable threw out their right to life. God forbid - if someone takes out any of my loved ones; death to them. END OF STORY!

Sounds like you enjoy killing people. In fact it sounds like you are upset you weren't with the Manson family. you sound just as demented as they are

[QWERTY]

Parole is a joke.

[Nautilus1]

Teabaggers Suck wrote:

<quoted text>
Sounds like you enjoy killing people. In fact it sounds like you are upset you weren't with the Manson family. you sound just as demented as they are

He sounds sane to me. Would you be promoting the freedom of someone who killed a family member or friend.

[Dan]

To the person in New Zealand - I have to ask why anyone in the U.S. should pay attention to what YOU have to say on the subject of Manson/Atkins. You can't make up your own facts. And what matters most is not what people think - especially foreigners. It's what the families of the victims think and they do not want ANY of the monsters connected with those atrocities released.

This is insane. I cannot believe that paroling any of the Manson people is even being discussed. I am reading prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book on the case because of the anniversary and if you've never read it, you should pick it up. It's an extremely detailed account of the case and the most interesting true-crime book ever written.

Show Susan Atkins mercy? Compassion? Do you want to know what kind of compassion she showed Sharon Tate? Here are some examples: 1) Tate (while still alive) had a rope tied around her neck that was hung over a rafter with the other end tied to the bloody body of a dead friend. Anytime Sharon tried to move, she choked. 2) When Tate pleaded that she wanted to have her baby, Atkins looked her straight in the eyes and said "look b-tch, you're going to die." 3) After stabbing Tate repeatedly, Atkins tasted the dead woman's blood. She later compared stabbing someone to having an orgasm. 4) Atkins revealed to a prison inmate that the Manson group wanted to mutilate the victims. They had wanted to cut off their fingers - and also gouge their eyes out and smash them against the wall. But they felt rushed. And there's so much more.

Please spread the word. Susan Atkins and these monsters must NEVER get out of prison.

[Dan]

Your post is surely a joke. You misrepresented everything that happened during that lurid case. 40 years is a long time - but Americans don't forget. We are not Scotland or New Zealand.

You talk as if Susan Atkins was an innocent bystander. You must be a relative or friend of that monster. Atkins was the one who personally dipped a towel in Sharon's blood and wrote "PIG" on the wall. However "high" or "brainwashed"" she was during those two nights of savagery, she laughed during the trial and made a mockery of the proceedings - when she was most certainly lucid.

To anyone who doubts how heinous these crimes were, I suggest you Google photos of the "Sharon Tate crime scene" and "LaBianca crime scene."

And to "Rach" - if that's your real name. How nice that you can sit anonymously behind your computer screen and type that crap! And how DARE you attack the Tate family and talk about "embellishments"!

[Just another poster]

Dan wrote:

To the person in New Zealand - I have to ask why anyone in the U.S. should pay attention to what YOU have to say on the subject of Manson/Atkins. You can't make up your own facts. And what matters most is not what people think - especially foreigners. It's what the families of the victims think and they do not want ANY of the monsters connected with those atrocities released.
This is insane. I cannot believe that paroling any of the Manson people is even being discussed. I am reading prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book on the case because of the anniversary and if you've never read it, you should pick it up. It's an extremely detailed account of the case and the most interesting true-crime book ever written.
Show Susan Atkins mercy? Compassion? Do you want to know what kind of compassion she showed Sharon Tate? Here are some examples: 1) Tate (while still alive) had a rope tied around her neck that was hung over a rafter with the other end tied to the bloody body of a dead friend. Anytime Sharon tried to move, she choked. 2) When Tate pleaded that she wanted to have her baby, Atkins looked her straight in the eyes and said "look b-tch, you're going to die." 3) After stabbing Tate repeatedly, Atkins tasted the dead woman's blood. She later compared stabbing someone to having an orgasm. 4) Atkins revealed to a prison inmate that the Manson group wanted to mutilate the victims. They had wanted to cut off their fingers - and also gouge their eyes out and smash them against the wall. But they felt rushed. And there's so much more.
Please spread the word. Susan Atkins and these monsters must NEVER get out of prison.

Manson gets hundreds of letters from adoring fans - he is a cult hero to a lot of really sick people. If he had been executed, he wouldn't be able to be carrying on correspondence with anyone - never mind cultivating another "family" as he seems to be doing.

I just saw a show on Michael Ross, a sexual sadist and sociopath who murdered 8 young women, and who raped several more from the time he was a college student at Cornell to the time he was captured and confessed to his killings years later. He was PROUD of what he had done - and clearly unrepentant. He was also proud of all the letters he received - and showed them off for the camera. It took 18 years for the State of Connecticut to execute him - but it finally got done. There is no good reason to keep people like him and Manson alive.

As for the two slimeballs who killed Mrs. Petit and her daughters - the thought that they will live for years - even behind bars is disturbing. Again, there are those sick people who idolize murderers for whatever reason - and who write letters and even fall in love and marry these miserable excuses for human beings. Better that Connecticut changes its laws to provide for limits on appeals and that it carries out the death sentences lawfully given quickly. Don't give murderers time to become folk heroes in ANYONE's eyes. Let them be dead, buried and forgotten.

[Dan]

Just another poster wrote:

<quoted text>
Manson gets hundreds of letters from adoring fans - he is a cult hero to a lot of really sick people. If he had been executed, he wouldn't be able to be carrying on correspondence with anyone - never mind cultivating another "family" as he seems to be doing.
I just saw a show on Michael Ross, a sexual sadist and sociopath who murdered 8 young women, and who raped several more from the time he was a college student at Cornell to the time he was captured and confessed to his killings years later. He was PROUD of what he had done - and clearly unrepentant. He was also proud of all the letters he received - and showed them off for the camera. It took 18 years for the State of Connecticut to execute him - but it finally got done. There is no good reason to keep people like him and Manson alive.
As for the two slimeballs who killed Mrs. Petit and her daughters - the thought that they will live for years - even behind bars is disturbing. Again, there are those sick people who idolize murderers for whatever reason - and who write letters and even fall in love and marry these miserable excuses for human beings. Better that Connecticut changes its laws to provide for limits on appeals and that it carries out the death sentences lawfully given quickly. Don't give murderers time to become folk heroes in ANYONE's eyes. Let them be dead, buried and forgotten.

I couldn't agree with you more. It sickens me that anyone would idolize the Manson killers or treat them as cult heroes.

One of those people is director John Waters, who has been promoting the release of another Manson murderer - Leslie Van Houton. He befriended her years ago and you want to know why? Because the Manson "family" reminded him of his hippie friends in the 1960s! The self-proclaimed "king of bad taste" truly shows his colors with that one.

And yet another Manson follower, a guy by the name of Bobby Beausoleil, sells erotic art from prison with his wife. He's also released several CDs of his music that are sold on Amazon! The dirt bag is in prison for life for savagely killing a musician named Gary Hinman, who refused to give Manson his money.

It's depressing but there are some real sickos in this world who choose to glorify a bunch of demented wackos...

[Just another poster]

Dan wrote:

<quoted text>I couldn't agree with you more. It sickens me that anyone would idolize the Manson killers or treat them as cult heroes.
One of those people is director John Waters, who has been promoting the release of another Manson murderer - Leslie Van Houton. He befriended her years ago and you want to know why? Because the Manson "family" reminded him of his hippie friends in the 1960s! The self-proclaimed "king of bad taste" truly shows his colors with that one.
And yet another Manson follower, a guy by the name of Bobby Beausoleil, sells erotic art from prison with his wife. He's also released several CDs of his music that are sold on Amazon! The dirt bag is in prison for life for savagely killing a musician named Gary Hinman, who refused to give Manson his money.
It's depressing but there are some real sickos in this world who choose to glorify a bunch of demented wackos...

If I recall correctly, Beausoleil wasn't married when he murdered Gary Hinman, nor was he married when he was sentenced to life. What kind of woman would marry someone like him? It boggles the mind. And yet, he isn't alone. Ross actually got engaged to some dopey broad while he was on death row.

[Old Guy]

Under Connecticut law anyone who commits a felony where someone dies is quilty of murder. Even if the person who dies is one of the perpetrators the other perpetrator(s) are guilty of murder.

Just because someone is set free after being found guilty does not mean he did not do the crime, it means because of a technicality some evidence is not admissable so he is set free. For instance a girl is raped and killed and someone is found guilty by the evidence and testimoney. Twenty years later they test the DNA in the dead girls panties and find it did not delong to the rapist so they let him out. Actually what happened is the girl had intercous with her boy friend the day before the rape and that is the semon they found on her panties.

As far as executing the guilty, send them down here to Florida we execute about one a month.

[Batwoman]

Just another poster wrote:

<quoted text>
If I recall correctly, Beausoleil wasn't married when he murdered Gary Hinman, nor was he married when he was sentenced to life. What kind of woman would marry someone like him? It boggles the mind. And yet, he isn't alone. Ross actually got engaged to some dopey broad while he was on death row.

It's scary, but death row inmates have huge followings from inmates. Richard Rimarez has a huge female fan base. The day Scott Hamilton entered death row he was bombarded with fan mail from adoring females. A lot of women from Europe come to America and marry them sight unseen after establishing a pen pal relationship

[Batwoman]

i mean huge followings from women, not inmates. sorry