Freedom for Van Houten?
Court delays decision on release of the Manson follower.
An appellate court delayed a decision on the potential release of Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten after a short hearing Wednesday morning in downtown Los Angeles.
The hearing follows a years- long saga that has seen a board recommend her parole three times. Former Gov. Jerry Brown twice overruled the parole board’s recommendation; Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to make a ruling on the third recommendation shortly.
Van Houten’s case was heard Wednesday before California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal. The appellate judges, who were weighing whether to uphold a lower court’s ruling denying her parole, raised questions about what would happen if Newsom were to make his decision on the parole board’s third recommendation before the court returned its decision.
The four- justice panel said it would defer a ruling until it received arguments from both sides addressing whether the appellate case would be moot if Newsom were to issue his decision before the court rules.
Van Houten was 19 when she and fellow cult members stabbed Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, to death at their Los Feliz home in 1969. The killings took place a day after other so- called Manson family members murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others in crimes that shocked the world.
Van Houten, who was sentenced to seven years to life in prison in 1978, was involved only in the LaBianca killings. The former Monrovia High School homecoming princess testified to stabbing Rosemary LaBianca at least 14 times.
Van Houten, 69, was not at Wednesday’s hearing.
Van Houten’s attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, argued that his client deserved to be released because she had satisfied every aspect of rehabilitation and no longer presents any risk to society. Prosecutors continued to vigorously f ight Van Houten’s release because of the seriousness of the crimes.
Every year since 2016, a parole board has recommended that Van Houten deserves to be released. Brown, in blocking Van Houten’s release twice, said she had failed to explain how she transformed from an upstanding teen to a killer and that she laid too much of the blame on Manson.
The panel asked Pfeiffer to cite specific instances in which Van Houten had expressed remorse to the families of her victims. They also raised questions about whether Van Houten had minimized her own role in the gruesome killings when discussing Manson’s control over her.
Pfeiffer said Van Houten took full responsibility for her role in the crimes, and added that his client had gained a personal understanding of the sway that Manson had held over her. “If she didn’t understand that, there could be a potential risk that she could get out and someone else could control her,” Pfeiffer told the justices.
During the hearing, the panel and Pfeiffer also brief ly disputed the course of events on that night in Los Feliz nearly half a century ago.
“You’re just saying she was a poor assassin,” one of the justices shot back after Pfeiffer argued that Van Houten had “failed as the solider she was trained to be” and showed hesitation at one point during the night of the murders.
Courts can be reluctant to interfere in matters of parole, said Samuel Pillsbury, a criminal law professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “It is highly emotional. The voters have decided the governor should have a veto on this, so the courts would prefer to let this process play out.”
Manson died of natural causes in 2017 at a California hospital while serving a life sentence.
Pfeiffer and the prosecution have five days to prepare their supplemental briefs for the justices before the court makes a ruling.