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C.A. Orders Release of Manson Follower Leslie Van Houten
Writing for the Majority, Justice Bendix Says There Is ‘No Evidence’ Supporting Governor Newsom’s Reversal of Parole Board’s Grant of Freedom to Woman Who Participated in Slayings of Rosemary, Leno La Bianca
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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—AP Leslie Van Houten attends her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women Sept. 6, 2017, in Corona. |
The Court of Appeal for this district, in a 2-1 decision, yesterday granted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus ordering the release on parole of Leslie Van Houten, a co-conspirator in the grizzly 1969 murders by members of the Charles Manson cult of Rosemary and Leno La Bianca.
Div. One countermanded Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Nov. 27, 2020, reversal of the Board of Parole Hearings’s fourth order granting parole to Van Houten, 72. The decision renders moot any challenge to the governor’s 2022 reversal of the board’s fifth grant of parole.
“We review the Governor’s decision under the highly deferential ‘some evidence’ standard, in which even a modicum of evidence is sufficient to uphold the reversal,” Justice Helen I. Bendix of Div. One said in an opinion in which Justice Victoria Chaney joined. “Even so, we hold on this record, there is no evidence to support the Governor’s conclusions.”
Van Houten has admitted that she stabbed Rosemary Bianca 14 times during an early-morning intrusion into the couple’s Los Feliz-area home on Aug. 10, 1969, accompanied by Manson, Charles “Tex” Watson, and Patricia Krenwinkel. She was not present at the slaying the previous night of actress Sharon Tate and others.
Following her third trial in 1978, she was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of conspiracy and was sentenced to seven years to life in prison, with the possibility of parole. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown blocked the board’s grant of parole twice, and Newsom has reversed it three times.
In countermanding the board’s fourth decision to grant a release on parole, Newsom wrote:
“Ms. Van Houten’s explanation of what allowed her to be vulnerable to Mr. Manson’s influence remains unsatisfying. At her parole hearing, Ms. Van Houten explained that she was turning her back on her parents following their divorce and after a forced abortion. She described herself at the time of her involvement in the Manson Family as a ‘very weak person that took advantage of someone that wanted to take control of my life and I handed it over.’ I am unconvinced that these factors adequately explain her eagerness to submit to a dangerous cult leader or her desire to please Mr. Manson, including engaging in the brutal actions of the life crime.”
He added:
“I remain concerned by Ms. Van Houten’s characterization of her participation in this gruesome double murder, part of a series of crimes that rank among the most infamous and fear-inducing in California history.”
Newsom also found:
“Given the extreme nature of the crime in which she was involved, I do not believe she has sufficiently demonstrated that she has come to terms with the totality of the factors that led her to participate in the vicious Manson Family killings. Before she can be safely released, Ms. Van Houten must do more to develop her understanding of the factors that caused her to seek acceptance from such a negative, violent influence, and perpetrate extreme acts of wanton violence.”
After Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen denied Van Houten’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the inmate filed an original petition in the Court of Appeal.
Bendix’s Opinion
Bendix said in yesterday’s majority opinion:
“Van Houten provided extensive explanation as to the causative factors leading to her involvement with Manson and commission of the murders, and the record does not support a conclusion that there are hidden factors for which Van Houten has failed to account. The Governor’s refusal to accept Van Houten’s explanation amounts to unsupported intuition.”
She continued:
“The Governor’s finding of inconsistencies between Van Houten’s statements now and at the time of the murders fails to account for the decades of therapy, self-help programming, and reflection Van Houten has undergone in the past 50 years. The historical factors identified in the criminal risk assessment are the sort of immutable circumstances our Supreme Court has held cannot support a finding of current dangerousness when there is extensive evidence of rehabilitation and other strong indicators of parole suitability, all of which Van Houten has demonstrated.”
Bendix said that “Van Houten has shown extraordinary rehabilitative efforts, insight, remorse, realistic parole plans, support from family and friends, favorable institutional reports,” and declared that “the Governor’s reversal in this case is not supported by a modicum of evidence in the record.”
Rothschild’s Dissent
Presiding Justice Frances Rothschild said in a dissent:
“I disagree with the majority because, in my view, the record contains some evidence to support the Governor’s decision to reverse Leslie Van Houten’s 2020 grant of parole in at least two ways. First, the current record and the record before this court in 2019 are not so materially different as to warrant our reaching a different result today than we did in considering Van Houten’s 2019 petition.”
In 2020, as in 2019, she said, Van Houten continued to minimize her role in the murders.
“Second,” Rothschild wrote, “the record contains some evidence that Van Houten has failed to show sufficient insight by failing to make a connection between her relationship with Charles Manson and her prison marriage to a man who sought to take advantage of her.”
The presiding justice contended:
“I conclude the record contains some evidence Van Houten lacked insight into the commitment offense. Coupled with the heinous nature of that crime, this is sufficient…to provide some evidence of current dangerousness and support the Governor’s decision.”
The case is In re Van Houten, 2023 S.O.S. 1765.
There was no immediate word from state Attorney General Rob Bonta as to whether review would be sought in the California Supreme Court.
Copyright 2023, Metropolitan News Company