Whenever the notorious murderer Charles Manson or one of his convicted followers has asked for parole for the past 40 years, a Los Angeles County District Attorney has joined the victims’ family members in a California state prison to argue against the release.
But when Kay Martley joined a video conference of the California Probation Hearings Council to consider parole for Manson’s “family” killer Bruce Davis earlier this month, she was shocked to learn that she was defending the case only on behalf of your murdered relative.
“I had no one to speak for me,” said Martley, 81, whose cousin Gary Hinman was tortured and killed by Manson’s followers on July 27, 1969. “I felt that no one else cares about the victim’s families. We are totally forgotten. “
The absence of a prosecutor was not an oversight. It was the result of a policy change ordered by the newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney, George Gascón, who campaigned on the promise to reduce the number of people in prison.
The new order suspends Los Angeles County prosecutors who oppose parole for inmates sentenced to life in prison who have already completed the mandatory minimum prison term.
Gascón’s directive is part of a sudden change in the way his prosecutor’s office, the largest in the country, is considering victims’ rights before, during and after criminal trials.
The move is unlikely to have a direct effect on Davis’ fate, experts say. Although the state council has recommended parole – the sixth time it has – California Governor Gavin Newsom must deny the convicted killer’s early release.
But the dynamics of a victim’s family member feeling abandoned by prosecutors represents an unintended – but thorny – consequence of some progressive prosecutors’ new drive to stop trying to influence parole decisions.
Gascón is among a handful of prosecutors in places like New Orleans and Brooklyn, New York, to rethink his position on automatically opposed parole requests. The movement gained momentum in the wake of national recognition of racial inequality in the criminal justice system, spurred on by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody last May.
The Davis case illustrates how the victims’ family members can feel as if they have been left in the cold.
“My jaw drops. I’m outraged,” said Debra Tate, whose actress sister, Sharon Tate, was murdered by Manson’s followers.
Tate joined Davis’ parole hearing earlier this month and said she was also shocked by the absence of a prosecutor.
“In the most horrible moment, when you have to relive the horrible details of the loss of your loved ones, now you must also get the job done and act as the prosecutor would do,” she said.
Under the new policy, Los Angeles County prosecutors will no longer attend probation hearings and will support in writing granting parole to a person who has already served their mandatory minimum sentence, Gascón said in a memo to his employees on December 7, the day he was inducted.
Gascón said that if state prison officials determine that a person represents a “high” risk of reoffending, the prosecutor “may, in his letter, take a neutral stance on granting parole.”
Underlying the argument is the idea that state probation officials, not prosecutors, are better equipped to judge whether or not to release prisoners.
“The prosecutors’ role ends in the sentence,” said Alex Bastian, Gascón’s special adviser. “There has been a tug of war between public security and equity. The prosecutor believes that you can do both.”
Asked to answer specific questions about the Davis case, Bastian said the firm is focused on providing “trauma informed services” when a “painful crime” occurs.
“In any case where an individual has spent nearly half a century in prison, the probation council has probably reviewed generations of behavioral health assessments and determined that an elderly man in his late 80s is not the same person he was in his 30s,” he added. “It is likely that the people’s interest in continuing incarceration, at an extraordinary cost to taxpayers, has informed their decision to release.”
Bastian noted that the office will continue to provide an advocate for victims to support their families. He acknowledged that no victim advocates attended the online hearing, but said it was because family members were opposed. Martley contested this characterization, saying that she was never informed about the possibility of anyone attending the hearing.
Manson and his followers carried out a series of horrific murders in Los Angeles in 1969.
Davis, now 78, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1972 for the deaths of Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea.
Hinman, an aspiring musician, was tortured and killed after Manson mistakenly believed that he had received an inheritance. According to court testimony, Davis kept Hinman at gunpoint while Manson cut his face and cut his ear with a sword.
Authorities called to the house on July 31, 1969, discovered Hinman’s body and a symbol of the Black Panther and “political piggy” written on the walls of the house in what was later identified as Hinman’s blood.
Shea, who worked on the ranch where Manson and some of his followers lived, was stabbed and beaten to death. He was then dismembered and his remains were not discovered until 1977.
Davis was not involved in Tate’s most notorious deaths and six others by Manson and his followers.
Steve Grogan, who was convicted of Shea’s murder, was the only follower of Manson convicted of the murders to be paroled in 1985. Manson, who died in 2017, was repeatedly denied parole.
Davis, who had a total of 33 state probation hearings, has been deemed suitable for probation six times since 2010. In each case, the incumbent governor has blocked his release from prison.
The council’s most recent parole recommendation for his release, referred to in official documents as “suitability for parole,” will be finalized in the coming months. Correctional officers will conduct a legal review, so Newsom has a month to reject the decision, take no action or make changes to the decision by adding a probation condition or changing the release date.
Newsom’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Davis’ lawyer, Michael Beckman, said his client was the “most rehabilitated” of any of the nearly 2,000 inmates serving life sentences he represented.
“He gained seven years of life, and if he were someone else instead of a member of the Manson family, he would have left 30 years ago,” said Beckman. “There is no doubt that there is a visceral reaction [to the Manson murders]. But the law says that you can only hold someone accountable for your participation in the crime. He cannot be held responsible for what Charles Manson did. Bruce didn’t kill anyone. He participated in two murders. And he took responsibility for all of that. “
Los Angeles County retired deputy district attorney Stephen Kay said he believed Gascón, in trying to do the right thing, went too far in issuing a general policy.
He said prosecutors play an important role in the process, ensuring that parole advice is presented to the facts of the conviction, along with the impact of the crimes on the victims’ families.
“Basically, he took the people’s lawyer out of the equation and left him in the hands of the defense,” said Kay.
Kay said that at the first parole hearing for Patricia Krenwinkel, a Manson family member, the council was presented with a two-page parole report that, he said, downplayed her role in the brutal murder of Tate, her unborn baby and four other victims: Wojciech Frykowski, Jay Sebring, Steven Parent and Abigail Folger.
Four of the victims were stabbed 102 times and the fifth was shot dead. Kay recited the horrible details of the murders.
“I think we owe it to society not to release a member of the Manson family, like Patricia Krenwinkel, who participated in seven of the most cruel and brutal murders in the history of American crime,” Kay told the council, according to a transcript. “I think it would be a great deterrent to show the public that not everyone who commits murder can automatically leave on parole.”
It was the first draft of an argument he made about 60 times, from 1978 to 2005, when he retired and a new generation of prosecutors began to attend probation hearings.
Martley, the victim’s cousin Gary Hinman, has been on probation board hearings since 2012. She said she was in “shock” when she realized that no member of the prosecutor’s office was attending the January 22 hearing. .
“I don’t think it’s fair that the prisoner has legal representation at the hearing and I don’t,” she said.
“It was a horrible crime,” she added. “If God wants, I will be healthy to be able to continue fighting these people”.