Way way way OT: Charles manson is dead!

Submitted by Cw1lly33 on
Now I’m not the type of person that typically that celebrates the death of someone but this POS earned it. My only complaint is that he didn’t suffer even more than he did. Rot in hell Charlie!

rob f

November 20th, 2017 at 8:00 AM ^

is dead.

Seems like his fate was canned and sealed some time ago.

(Oh, now you edited and changed it to "Manson". I was wondering what you had against home canning.

Nevermind!)

ijohnb

November 20th, 2017 at 10:27 AM ^

reasons.

1) It is something to do.  Many prisoners just want something to pay attention to.  An entire life staring at the wall and asking yourself over and over and over and over again "why couldn't I have just _____________" tends to become a little bothersome.  Their legal proceeding is something to take their mind off that.

2) I think that it is easy to say you would rather just die than spend the rest of your life in prison until that is your reality.  At that point, I think all living things have a primitive instinct to survive.  Add to that, if you are a prisoner looking at the death penalty you have done something very bad, and all of the sudden the concept of hell becomes a little more real and a little less figurative.

3) I really don't think there is any legal mechanism to seek a "harsher" sentence than you received.  At least not that I am aware of.  I am sure you could argue it but it would be laughed out of court.

BoFan

November 20th, 2017 at 9:06 AM ^

The California Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1976 but the voters brought it back a few months later. There have been a number of executions since then though none recently. I believe Manson might have benefited from a legal loophole given the cancellation and reinstatement of the law.

xtramelanin

November 20th, 2017 at 9:19 AM ^

part of my old job was prosecuting those guys.  it was reserved for what are called 'special circumstances' murders in which you had to prove not only that the murder was premediated and deliberate (a first degree murder), but also that there were certain special circumstances attendant to the murder.  examples might be poisoning, torture, multiple murders, things like that.  

ijohnb

November 20th, 2017 at 10:55 AM ^

example - The victim was your eight months pregnant wife who you were cheating on and you hit the road for the mexican border in disguise after throwing away all of her shit, ordering a bunch of porn, and buying a new truck like a week after the murders.  That might be a *hypothetical* example of something that gets you the death penalty in CA.

xtramelanin

November 20th, 2017 at 11:17 AM ^

that was another of the cases we handled.   

Front Cover

 

the randy craft murders (64 killed) and the maniscalco case (hessian biker/assassins) were a couple of others.  i actually testified in the maniscalco case.   we did not ask for death in that case.  excerpt here:

Everyone in Orange County law enforcement during the 1970s and ’80s knew about Tom Maniscalco – and that was before he was charged with three counts of murder.

He was one of the founders of the Hessians motorcycle gang who rode Harleys by day and went to law school by night in the 1960s.

After he passed the bar exam, Maniscalco defended his biker buddies in Orange County courts by day while running a meth and counterfeiting ring by night, according to court records.

And then he became a suspect in the May 1980 deaths of two former motorcycle gang members and the 19-year-old girlfriend of one of the victims. His case became one of the 60 featured in “Notorious OC,” an e-book published in 2012 by the Register about the most notorious criminal cases in the county’s history.

After 10 years in custody, Maniscalco was convicted on three counts of second-degree murder in 1994. He has been quietly serving a 46-years-to life term in prison.

Larry Appleton

November 20th, 2017 at 10:36 AM ^

The actual reason is the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional for a few years. When the USSC changed their minds, everyone who had been on death row could not be put back on it for double jeopardy reasons. I guess it would have hurt their feelings, or something.

rob f

November 20th, 2017 at 9:50 AM ^

by Vincent Bugliosi, the attorney who prosecuted the Manson case.

I recall reading Bugliosi's obituary when he passed away a couple years ago, that "Helter Skelter" is the all-time #1 best-selling true crime book. Didn't surprise me---when I first read it decades ago, I simply couldn't put the book down.

A must-read for anyone interested in learning a helluva lot more about the case.

Too bad Bugliosi didn't live long enough to hear of Manson's death.