Susan Atkins is dying of brain cancer and wanted a "compassionate release" from her life prison sentence so she could "die with digity," surrounded by family and friends instead of prison guards. Yes, that Susan Atkins:
Atkins was the one who stabbed Tate to death, saying she killed her to silence the actress's pleas to spare her unborn baby. After the slaying, Atkins tasted Tate's blood and used it to write the word "Pig" on the victim's door. She claimed she was on LSD at the time of the murders, but did not apologize until a parole hearing years later.
She's been alive almost 40 years longer than she should have been, and she's fine right where she is. The parole board was smart enough to deny the request -- which wasn't not a sure thing, since this is California we're talking about.
Comments
Life imprisonment, Leo, is cruel.
Since it's not unusual as well, it's legal under the constitution, but it's not like the prisoners alone are being brutalized. The prison guard lives in that poisonous environment 40 hours a week, and then he comes home to family, friends, and community, and infects them with his attitude.
We have laws like OSHA that say employers aren't allowed to kill their employees on the installment plan; similarly, as taxpayers, we ought not be deadening the souls of our employees.
True compassion isn't pulling the wings off flies and letting them lie on the windowsill in the sunlight. It's swatting them dead in the first place.
If someone needs to go to prison, they need to be reformed. If they can't be released to society within 5 years, we need to stop kidding ourselves. Someone who has been released can suffer a relapse, and I believe in second chances. But if they have suffered *two* relapses, we need to stop kidding ourselves.
That's my prescription: no more than two imprisonments, no more than 5 years per imprisonment. After that, we swat the fly.
The electric chair and lethal injection are barbarous means of execution. Simply make all the cells on death row airtight, and at a time unknown to the prisoner, we start increasing the carbon monoxide. The prisoner falls asleep and never wakes.
Susan Atkins is not "fine right where she is." It's costing taxpayers more than $100K a year to torture her.
But she ought not be released, either. Allowing her to die in the 1970s would have been far more compassionate to her - and to the rest of the world.
...Not to mention...a LOT more "cost-effective".
B.G.
I too, would rather she would have simply been shot in the forehead. However, since the law of our land (this year) is to let these murderous sh$*heads languish in a rather benign existence as opposed to ripping their endocryne systen out, I have NO problem with letting her "rot" in prison. Sometimes I actually don't mind paying taxes for some things.