Susan Atkins and the Right To Mercy
66She is Dying, and So Are We All
Nearly 40 years ago Susan Atkins, a member of the Manson Family, committed several murders. Grisly ones at that. In the attempts of starting a Race War. Today she is 60 years old and fighting brain cancer. She and her family are asking the parol board for mercy, as it were, in releasing her from her sentence so she may die in peace, at home with her loved ones. One of the major arguments on her side is that to hold her in custody would cost the state millions of dollars. In fact the number $1.4m was bandied around as the cost of houseing, guarding, and attending to her medical needs. She is a changed woman, they say. Changed indeed. Notice how the rehabilitation card was played AFTER the monitary one.
It has been pointed out that durring the Atkins trial she was with out remorse. Alright: she was under the spell of a charismatic devil named Charlie and the drugs he plied her with. In 1972 her death sentence was repealed and commuted to life. Good for her, but still her remorse was not there. It is only now, when confronted with the grave herself, that her change in point of view has come about. BUT, no one has heard or seen her express any remorse.
That Tears it.
In the event that I sound rather harsh in the next few lines, I appologize, but this needs to be said: Let her die in prison. The cost may be up, but at least justice will be served. She has been in prison for 37 years and her proponents say that she has paid her debt to society. Really, I though she got LIFE IN PRISON. With the prognosis giving her only months to live, the balance on her account still isn't paid off. Sound harsh, maybe; but I think she was already shown a great deal of mercy when her Death Sentence was commuted.
And the money issue. Really? If she only has a few months to go, how much are we really spending? Honestly? One cannot argue both sides using the same point. Either she is going to die soon or she lives on and on and costs the state millions. One cannot have it both ways.
In the end, though, what i say does not matter in the least. The parole board denied her appeal today. Her supporters were disappointed, but not as much as the families she helped ruin 40 years ago and ruined again with this appeal. They had to relive this brutal epoch of their life with the fear in the back of their minds that the justice system MAY forget them. Thank god, in this case, it didn't.
Who knows, Susan Atkins has only months to live; but she may prove to be useful yet. Modern Science just may learn that finishing out one's prison term is a cure for cancer.
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Comments
i agree completely. No one really has a bead on how long they are going to live. Sharon Tate certainly didn't. Susan Atkins should certainly be allowed to have more visits, and she is quite lucky that there are people out there willing to visit her. Not everyone on death row, or in prison in general, is lucky enough to have visitors (esp. after 37 years). She simply needs to concentrate on getting her soul ready for judgment.
The Blogger does NOT sound harsh when he says "Let her die in prison." If Charles Manson had cancer there wouldn't be a debate about letting him out to die with his loved ones. I agree,also, that mercy has already been shown to Atkins by allowing her to live to be 60. Poor Sharon Tate and Abigail Folger et al didn't get that chance. Atkins got to decide when and where they died and she also wants to decide when and where she dies. Sorry. I just don't see why we should allow this.
While I can see that people who lived during this time would ulitmately agree that she should remain in prison, and while I see that this seems like the appropriate remedy and an easy solution, let's not forget the underlying truth. Susan Adkins was a teenage kid living in a rebelous time and fell under the power and control of a man who was out to start a dark and twisted demonic revolution. Yes, she took part in the killings, yes she was one of the main girls at the trial with a cross on her forehead and made a complete ass out of herself, however, would this girl have committed such crimes if she had never crossed paths with Charles Manson? Looking at some of the other key players such as Lynette Squeaky Fromme and Mister Tex Watson, two who had the ultimate pleasure in the killings, who did not need as much nurturing and brainwashing along with tons of drugs in order to alter their mens rea, to commit such hanus crimes as the La Bianca and Sharon Tate murders, along with others that are coming to light as we speak. Now, if one of them were in such a case, yes I would say, die in prison, because they were very involved in the orchestration of the murders. However, Susan Adkins, not so much. Just a wandering hippie teenager who was caught up by a young seducing man who tangled a murderous web where she was trapped in.
While Atkins may have been a hapless teen lured into the twisted plot by a charasmatic and deranged Svengalli-like Manson, she still killed people and has shown no remorse over it. The penal system, over the last 40 years, has shifted its focus from rehabilitation of penalization. Meaning: the convicts are being punished for doing wrong and if some form of rehabilitation comes about, that is an ancillary bennefit. I wouldn't not punish my son for taking out the car without permission, even if he was REALLY REALLY sorry. If someone does something they must live with the consequences of that action. Putting off responsibility is causing a moral decay in this society that we may NEVER recover from. If the victims didn't get a chance, neither should their transgressor. The old addage is right: Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
yes, but she has already done the time... well most of it anyways.
and life still means life, sick or no
Bull Shit
Elloquently put, Ray; however i cannot help but feel that you may have more to say. What, pray tell, is "bull shit"? could it be my argumentation, or the topic itself?
Perhaps if you would expound a bit beyond the vulgar, i would know what you have reservations about.
I'm just saying. . .
I just get angry, when people debait what is obvious.
if it were so in fact obvious, there would not have been such a debate about it when the case was brought back into the public eye nearly a year ago. What may be common sense to some, like you, i gather, is not always seen by the rest of our society. And more power to them. They, too, are entitled to their opinions just as you or i are; but the thing that really rattles me is that glibness has taken the place of accuracy and the sound bite has taken the place of debate. It is easier to call bull shit than to make an argument, though that is what is now taking center stage. Something to mull over, maybe.
Calm down. You "are" right. Have a good day!
Cure for cancer...ha. Karma is sure bitin' her in the ass now. Here's hoping the other four go the same way. Any of you who find it so easy to say things like "Well, it's been long enough", "It won't make any difference if she gets out now", "We can forgive her", just think how it'd feel if the psychos broke into your house and tortured and hacked and laughed and mutilated your family. Just because they wanted to. And how you would think about it every day for the rest of your life, what they went through and what they could have done if they'd lived.
Some of the things the victims were reported to have said before they succumbed will haunt me forever. Such terror they experienced.
Too much energy has been wasted on this POS called Susan/Sadie Atkins. Who gives a sh*t if she has cancer. She should have been executed years ago.
Marla, that is exactly the point! what is even more disheartening is the fact that susan's former "collegue" Lynette Fromme is slated for release this comming sunday. if you take a pot-shot at a president, i didn't think that you would be eligable for release. i guess i don't know much, huh?
as for the executed years ago, i am with you! more states, i feel, should be like TX, which has an average death row stay of 6 yrs. what is up with the decades long wait?
kerouazy21, If one takes a look at the crime scene photos and still thinks Sadie deserves anything other than death, then I have to question THEIR sanity. In my opinion, the real dilemma becomes how to satisfactorily "snuff out" her useless life. Forgive me, but I get a little wacky when I think of the details of the Manson murders ... It brings out the worst in me. Yes, Squeaky Fromme is another freak of nature. We are definitely living in a time where right is wrong and wrong is right.
i think that you a preaching to the chior, as it were. and we certainly ARE living in a time where right is wrong and wrong is right. We are all stepping on egg shells to maintain the rights of vicious, vicious people by treading on the rights of those who actually DESERVE them. But it doesn't stop there. I hate to sound harsh, or insame, or megolomaniacal, but we are all suffering on this planet because no one can stomach the suffering of a few. It is an interresting concept, really--not exactly in the vein of the Manson Family, but it gets to the heart of this politically correct world that sacrifices common sence to the altar of non-sense.
i'm just saying. . .
I think she should be allowed to stab herself to death with a butter knife. That is the compassion she truly is due.
Sharon Calhoun says:
18 months ago
I am sorry to seem heartless, but I say she should stay in prison where she belongs. What she and the others did is unforgivable to me. Taking innocent lives the way they did is somthing I will never forget. If it means letting her family visit with her more, then that would be something I can see happening, but letting her into the world without really knowing how long she has to live, no one really does, is like a reward for a terrible crime