How a 77-year-old Manson follower has Newsom in familiar bind

San Francisco Chronicle​

3 days ago

Once again, a state parole board has found one of cult leader Charles Manson's followers – Patricia Krenwinkel – suitable for release after more than 56 years behind bars for her role in seven 1969 murders. And once again, Gov. Gavin Newsom must decide whether there is any evidence that Krenwinkel, 77, would pose any danger if released – and whether a decision to free her would affect his political future.
The Board of Parole Hearings, whose members were appointed by the governor, voted Friday to grant parole to Krenwinkel, the state's longest-serving female prisoner. The board had ruled against her 14 times before recommending parole in 2022, but Newsom vetoed her release, saying she had not shown 'sufficient insight' into her crimes.
The governor gave a similar explanation in 2022 for vetoing the parole of another Manson follower, Leslie Van Houten, whose release had been approved five times by the parole board since 2016 but blocked each time by Govs. Jerry Brown and Newsom.
But a state appeals court ruled in 2023 that Newsom had failed to justify his conclusions that Van Houten, 73, lacked sufficient understanding of her actions and could still be dangerous after 54 years in prison. She was freed after the governor decided not to appeal the ruling.
'The only factor that can explain this veto (of Van Houten's parole) is political optics, and California law does not allow governors to veto people's parole because it will look bad,' said Hadar Aviram, a professor at UC College of the Law San Francisco and author of the 2020 book 'Yesterday's Monsters: The Manson Family Cases and the Illusion of Parole.'
And she said the same thinking will most likely affect Newsom's upcoming decision on Krenwinkel, once the parole board's decision becomes final in 120 days.
'What does he think people have an appetite for in this political reality?' Aviram asked, noting California voters' approval last November of Proposition 36, which increased some sentences for drug crimes. 'It costs him nothing to oppose (her release). In the worst-case scenario, the court overrules him again and she gets out.'
Manson ordered seven of his followers, including the 21-year-old Krenwinkel and two other young women, to kill nine people in three gruesome attacks in the Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles in July and August 1969.
During her trial, Krenwinkel admitted chasing Abigail Folger, heiress of the Folger coffee family, and stabbing her 25 times in the home of actress Sharon Tate, another murder victim, and then helping to kill grocery store executive Leno Bianca and his wife, Rosemary, and using their blood to scrawl 'Death to pigs' on a wall.
Convicted of seven murders, Krenwinkel was sentenced to death along with Manson and three others in 1971. But the sentences were reduced to life with the possibility of parole after the California Supreme Court overturned the state's death penalty law in 1972.
The voters passed a new law in 1977 making capital crimes punishable by death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, but those sentenced under the earlier law, including Krenwinkel, remained eligible for parole. Another ballot measure, approved by the voters in 1988, authorized the governor to veto decisions by the parole board.
In prison, Krenwinkel has a clean disciplinary record, earned a college degree and has taken part in community-service programs, working to support other inmates with mental illnesses. At her 2022 parole hearing, she said that after dropping out of school and becoming an infatuated member of Manson's so-called family at age 19, 'I allowed myself to just start absolutely becoming devoid of any form of morality or real ethics.'
In a statement released by Krenwinkel's lawyers, Jane Dorotik, a former inmate and now part of the support group California Coalition for Women Prisoners, said, 'Those of us who served time with her came to know her as a thoughtful, gentle, and kind person – someone deeply dedicated to creating a safe, caring environment.'
Relatives of the murder victims have not been persuaded.
'I beg the board to consider parole for Patricia Krenwinkel only when her victims are paroled from their graves,' Anthony Demaria, a nephew of victim Jay Sebring, testified at one of her hearings.
And Patrick Sequeira, a prosecutor in the murder cases, told the board that if Krenwinkel 'truly understood her crimes and the horrific nature of it, she wouldn't be here at a parole hearing. She would just accept a punishment.'
Not so, said her lead attorney, Keith Wattley, executive director of UnCommon Law, an Oakland-based firm that represents inmates seeking parole.
'Pat has fully accepted responsibility for everything she did, everything she contributed to, every twisted philosophy she embraced and endorsed and, most importantly, every life she destroyed by her actions in 1969,' Wattley said in a statement after the board's latest decision.
'Now it's the Governor's turn to show that he believes in law and order when the law requires a person's release despite public outcry.'