Atkins should not get any special consideration
But the point is that she is not really asking for anything truly extraordinary. For the law allows for convicts that have less than six months to live to be granted early release. It would be perfectly legal and within the law in California to do this. This provision is available so that mercy can be shown to those who are about to die.
Should the cruelty and barbarity of the murders done by the Manson family justify showing no mercy to Susan Atkins and her relatives??
To me, this would be an extremely tough choice to make. For I can fully sympathize with arguments on both sides of this matter. Thankfully, I did not have to rule on her appeal for mercy. For I would have felt real bad afterward no matter how I ruled.
I just don't see this being so totally black and white. I see some gray. And that is why I brought it up as a topic for discussion.
I would not be in such a quandary, though, if it was Manson himself who was dying. For he was the true ring-leader, the conductor of the Manson Family orchestra.
Perhaps I must also admit to being a little sexist here, since Atkins is a woman. Am I feeling more mercy towards her, simply because she is a woman?
We just had two local teachers here where I live get convicted of having sex with one of their students this past year. One was a man, and he was sentenced to two years in state prison last year. The other was a woman, and she just recently got a 60 day sentence in the County Jail. But since the county jail was overcrowded with dangerous criminals, they had to release her early, after only a couple of days.
Our Assistant District Attorney defended the mild sentence for the woman, since he pointed out that it basically ended forever her career of being a teacher, as she was now a registered sex offender. However, that was also true for the male teacher as well. The plea bargain also saved the county a lot of money in not having to prosecute the case at a trial. And since our county government is now currently broke, that could well have influenced things.
The male teacher had been put on trial last year, before the big cuts that were recently made to the county's budget.
Some local people did charge reverse sexism for the discrepancy between the two sentences. But perhaps it was simply just plain economics, and what the county could now afford to do. But perhaps they also view a female sex offender as being a lesser threat to society.
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