The Manson family vs. the West family

but if yr including other countries then there have without question people who were held for longer for less

generally for vague "crimes against the state", though, right? for belonging to the wrong party or publishing a questionable pamphlet or w/e.

where crimes of violence are concerned (and that's all the tate/labianca murders really were), manson seems to stand alone in terms of time served and general public horror accrued for murders one didn't even commit firsthand.

gotti, if we're honest about it, is in prison for running a vast criminal empire for years. includes many, many crimes, not just the fact that he ordered murders. and sexual assault of children seems on par w murder to me, so no surprise there.

Manson is imprisoned more than anything because he convinced a bunch of impressionable people to commit what, five murders?

Nine murders, iirc. Possibly more.

Why should the law make a distinction between murders committed first-hand and murders committed to order? It's pretty common for people to hire hitmen to off their spouses. They're quite rightly treated the same as they would be had they done it themselves.

Manson is imprisoned more than anything because he convinced a bunch of impressionable people to commit what, five murders?

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Wednesday, April 11, 2012 3:46 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there were seven murders, so far as i know know. that's a terrible crime, no argument. otoh, he was and still is very clearly insane. the fact that he's still seen as some hitler-level supermonster is bizarre to me.

Tate, Senring, Parent, Folger, Frykowsky, and the LoBiancos make seven. I think those are the only ones he was ever tried for.

first-hand vs. murder to order is a fair question. i'm not saying that charlie should have gotten off easier than his gang. he shouldn't. but i've always seen him primarily as an obvious case of mental illness, not of criminality a la gotti. and there's something weird to me about the holy dread in which he's held.

generally for vague "crimes against the state", though, right? for belonging to the wrong party or publishing a questionable pamphlet or w/e.

nah other countries (say, Iran) have much MUCH stiffer penalties for various crimes, and the burden of proof is way lower.

Manson's in jail for conspiracy to commit murder (seven murders iirc)

tbh, at present, i'm not sure how much of the Hitler-level-supermonster stuff is coming from the dudes who want to see him punished eternally and how much is coming from the ones who find him cool / fascinating.

if there were a ward he could be placed on where both he & his fellow patients would be safe, they'd probably do it. 77-year-old men who grew up in homes & prisons & are sociopaths are still quite capable of murdering the 78-year-old man who shares a room with them, and of doing so over some really minor shit. Jail is the right place for him. It is sad that jail is the right place for him, you wish there were something else to be done. But there isn't, I don't think.

Is he more insane than your headline-making serial killers? Seems pretty academic anyway - he'd be kept in solitary confinement in prison or in a facility.

yeah, good point. i was talking primarily about the US, originally, but threw in "treason" to account for all the reasons that people might receive more severe sentences. got off course trying to defend the claim. stupid to forget just how draconian "criminal justice" systems can be.

anyway, within the US, though manson did orchestrate a conspiracy to murder, his obvious mental illness (and attendant reduced moral capacity) and the fact that he didn't directly participate (and thus, given reduced capacity, can be claimed not have fully understood the consequences of his commands) seem to make him much less a "monster" than a great many other individuals who attract less condemnatory horror and dread. mob bosses like gotti, for instance. like, there's something special about the "evil" we attach to uncle charlie.

can be claimed not have fully understood the consequences of his commands)

uh...

He's seen as a monster because he convinced people to commit evil acts of their own volition.
Gotti paid people to kill. Which makes him no less monstrous, but it's an act that the average person can understand.

If Jim Jones or David Koresh had survived, they'd be seen as monsters too.

it may be true that prison is the only place suited to him, i dunno.

If Jim Jones or David Koresh had survived, they'd be seen as monsters too.

jones, yes. the body count was staggering. koresh, i'm not so sure about. suspect he'd be half a monster, half a folk hero. which may describe manson, too...

he was and still is very clearly insane

Agreed.

Some forms of insanity are more dangerous to society than others and Charlie's fantasy life is almost certainly capable of emerging in nasty ways if he were allowed free access to society. Better for him and for the rest of us to have him in a very closely controlled setting. Being old doesn't make him impotent to do harm to others.

uh...

yeah, i know, but from everything i've seen and read, he's been completely nuts since well before the murders. he's smart, articulate, occasionally quite lucid, but obviously out to lunch. the way i see things, that makes him less a criminal than a person with a disease. the fact that other people chose to do his bidding isn't something i really see as his fault, even if he intentionally "seduced" them or w/e. i'm big on the insanity defense.

aimless otm

and thus, given reduced capacity, can be claimed not have fully understood the consequences of his commands)

"Go to Terry Melcher's old house and kill everyone there" is pretty fucking clear, dude.

And he helped tie up both of the LoBiancas, so he certainly "participated" to the extent of choosing the victims, entering the house, incapacitating them, robbing them and ordering their deaths.

Seriously, what is your deal?

I mean I know seeing-all-the-angles is kinda your schtick, but do you really want to play Captain Save-A-Manson?

contie, what do you think should happen to sociopaths who are murderers?

aerosmith otm.

prison's not ideal, but he's not just a kindly old man who did a bad thing once a long time ago. it's not like he's magically cured of all the shit in his head after sitting alone in a cell for 5 decades. He knows how to live within the prison system but that doesn't mean he can function out in the world. I'm no stan for prison, but there's some situations where it's the safest place, not just for us but for him.

I mean, how fucked up would it be to get out of prison now after 50 years. A week out in the world would probably send him off the deep end.

Manson does not appear to have not understood that murder was wrong - one of the murders was about money and attempted to cover up the crimes with political sloganeering, etc..

I don't doubt that he's insane - but so are pretty much all serial and mass killers. That doesn't mean they meet the legal standards for not being responsible for their own actions.

i don't have any strong desire to punish mentally ill people for the things they do, even when those things are awful. mostly, i think they should get help, and that they should be treated in such a way as to reduce the likelihood that they'll harm anyone else. in some cases, this may mean long-term segregation from the rest of society. but manson's essentially spent his entire life in solitary confinement. it seems strange to me, though it's obviously for his safety as much as anything else.

with all of the above in mind, i do think that the feelings of victim's families are important in cases like this, and on that level, i sympathize with the desire to simply lock certain criminals up for life.

nolo contenderize

Is he more insane than your headline-making serial killers? Seems pretty academic anyway - he'd be kept in solitary confinement in prison or in a facility.

there's no such thing as solitary in hopitals, it's against the law. in California a doctor has to renew the order for seclusion every two hours. this is a good law, btw, it means I can't keep you locked in a room because it's inconvenient for my nursing staff to deal with you. but it's why a criminally insane person belongs in a prison, where the rules are different.

note that in my years of absence from the game I've elevated myself from floor staff to charge nurse, suck it haters

congrats placenta

http://neil-paton.tripod.com/abb0008.jpg

Aero, I've showered Mr. Manson and Mr. Koresh, passed all of the ice, collected all of the trays, and gotten sexually harassed by the guy in 7C, can I go to lunch now?

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4u82nj0cS1qb2ssvo1_500.jpg

clem grogan was convicted of murder and released on parole in '85

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Z_JEL2HOo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaAcnSnI-fI

this edit of this response succeeds in scaring the shit out of me every time. the longer edit is also scary but I feel like there's a biblical callback in "nobody" though I can't find the biblical source so it could be a pop-culture thing like an exorcism movie. either way this has always scared the hell out of me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2oZWpqtNi4

manson needs to be let out and given his own talk show, this is for the good of society

ATP curated by Charles Manson

'do something witchhousey'

I feel like there's a biblical callback in "nobody"

are you sure you aren't thinking of Homer

maybe but I think in some 70s exorcism thing, maybe in the Exorcist itself, a demon when interrogated responds "I'm no-one"

Homer's a pretty glaring weak spot for me, I read it in English a loooong time ago & did like the first 200 lines in Gk in lol college but I'm less familiar w/the important stuff in it than I oughta be

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!"

-Emily Dickinson's

He kind of looks like George Carlin in that short clip, when he's mugging.

there's no such thing as solitary in hopitals, it's against the law. in California a doctor has to renew the order for seclusion every two hours. this is a good law, btw, it means I can't keep you locked in a room because it's inconvenient for my nursing staff to deal with you. but it's why a criminally insane person belongs in a prison, where the rules are different.

Do you have anything similar to Broadmoor in the US? It's a hospital run with the same kind of security as a prison? The patients aren't in solitary confinement but there are more restrictions and lots of the staff are former prison officers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadmoor_Hospital

Arkham Asylum. Tho' the security is pretty lax iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I0v2bVX8j4

finally getting around to reading Helter Skelter

I read that when I was like 13 years old and it scared the living bejeebus out of me. I slept with the lights on for a week.

manson family vs. danson family

http://www.bittenandbound.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Ted-Danson-and-Mary-Steenburgen-with-their-blended-family.jpg

vs. the Hanson family.

http://www.hansonplace.blogger.com.br/00248.jpg