A California appeals court panel has reinstated a parole grant for former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten after Gov. Gavin Newsom blocked her release earlier this year.
The 2-1 ruling by the panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal does not mean Van Houten, 73, will be released from prison, Deadline reported. The state can still appeal to the California Supreme Court.
Van Houten was 19 when she participated in the killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in 1969. The LaBiancas were killed a day after Manson followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others; Van Houten was not present for those killings.
Van Houten was initially sentenced to death for her role in the LaBianca slayings, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison when California outlawed the death penalty. She has been behind bars since 1971.
The state parole board has recommended Van Houten’s release five times since her conviction. Newsom blocked the most recent in March 2022, writing that he didn’t “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.”
Writing for the majority of the appeals panel, Associate Justice Helen I. Bendix disagreed with Newsom’s assessment.
“Van Houten has shown extraordinary rehabilitative efforts, insight, remorse, realistic parole plans, support from family and friends, favorable institutional reports, and, at the time of the governor’s decision, had received four successive grants of parole,” Bendix wrote in the 58-page decision.
Presiding Justice Frances Rothschild dissented with Bendix and Associate Justice Victoria Gerrard Chaney, however, writing that “the record contains some evidence Van Houten lacked insight into the commitment offense” which was enough, when “coupled with the heinous nature of that crime” to “provide some evidence of current dangerousness and support the governor’s decision.”
Neither Newsom’s office nor that of California Attorney General Rob Bonta immediately responded for a request for comment.
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[Featured image: Leslie Van Houten at a parole hearing in 2017. (Stan Lim/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool)]
