The whole thrust of Irving Kanarek’s seven-day argument, I told the jury, was that the prosecution had framed its case against his client, Charles Manson.
“In other words, ladies and gentlemen,” I observed, “there are seven brutal murders, so the police and the District Attorney got together and said, ‘Let’s prosecute some hippie for these murders, someone whose life style we don’t like. Just about any hippie will do,’ and we just arbitrarily picked on poor Charles Manson.
“Charles Manson is not a defendant in this trial because he is some long-haired vagabond who made love to young girls and was a virulent dissenter.
“He is on trial because he is a vicious, diabolical murderer who gave the order that caused seven human beings to end up in the cold earth. That is why he is on trial.”
I also hit, and hard, Kanarek’s claim that the prosecution was responsible for the excessive length of the trial. The jury had missed both Christmas and New Year’s at home, and I didn’t want them entering the jury chambers resenting the prosecution for this.
“Irving Kanarek, the Toscanini of tedium, is accusing the prosecution of tying up this court for over six months. You folks are the best witnesses. Every single, solitary witness that the prosecution called to the stand was asked brief questions, directly to the point. The witnesses were on that stand day after day after day on cross-examination, not on direct examination.”
As for Maxwell Keith, he did “everything possible for his client, Leslie Van Houten,” I observed. “He gave his best. Unfortunately for Mr. Keith, he had no facts and no law to support him. Mr. Keith, if you look at his argument very closely, never really disputed that Linda Kasabian and Dianne Lake told the truth. Basically, his position was that even if Leslie did the things Linda and Dianne said she did, she is still not guilty of anything.
“I wonder if Max would concede that she is at least guilty of trespassing?”
KEITH “I will.”
Max’s response surprised me. He was in effect admitting that Leslie had been in the LaBianca residence.
Even if Rosemary LaBianca was dead when Leslie stabbed her, I told the jury, she was guilty of first degree murder as both a co-conspirator and an aider and abetter. If a person is present at the scene of a crime, offering moral support, that constitutes aiding and abetting. But Leslie went far beyond this, stabbing, wiping prints, and so forth.
Also, we had only Leslie’s word for it that Rosemary was dead when she stabbed her. “Only thirteen of Rosemary’s forty-one stab wounds were post-mortem. What about the other twenty-eight?”
Yes, Tex, Sadie, Katie, and Leslie were robots, zombies, automatons. No question about it. But only in the sense that they were totally subservient and obsequious and servile to Charles Manson. Only in that sense. “This does not mean that they did not want to do what Charles Manson told them to do and weren’t very willing participants in these murders. To the contrary, all the evidence goes the other way. There is no evidence that any of these defendants objected to Charles Manson about these two horrendous nights of murder.
“Only Linda Kasabian, down in Venice, said: ‘Charlie, I am not you. I can’t kill.’”
The others not only didn’t complain, I noted, they laughed when the Tate murders were described on TV; Leslie told Dianne that stabbing was fun, that the more she stabbed the more she enjoyed it; while Sadie told Virginia and Ronnie that it was better than a sexual climax.
“The fact that these three female defendants obeyed Charles Manson and did whatever he told them to do does not immunize them from a conviction of first degree murder. It offers no insulation, no protection whatsoever. If it did, then hired killers or trigger men for the Mafia would have a built-in defense for murder. All they would have to say is: ‘Well, I did what my boss told me to do.’”
Mr. Keith also “suggested that Watson and the three girls had some type of mental disability which prevented them from deliberating and premeditating, even prevented them from having malice aforethought.” The problem with this, I told the jury, was that the defense never introduced any evidence of insanity or diminished capacity; on the contrary, I reminded the jury, Fitzgerald described the girls as “bright, intuitive, perceptive, well educated,” while the evidence itself showed “these defendants were thinking very, very clearly on these two nights of murder.”
Cutting telephone wires, instructing Linda to listen for sounds, hosing blood off their bodies, disposing of their clothing and weapons, wiping prints—“their conduct clearly and unequivocally shows that on both nights they knew exactly what they were doing, that they intended to kill, they did kill, and they did everything possible to avoid detection.
“They were not suffering, ladies and gentlemen, from any diminished mental capacity. They were suffering from a diminished heart, a diminished soul.”
Still up to his old tricks, Kanarek had constantly interrupted my argument with frivolous objections. Even after another contempt citation and a $100 fine, Kanarek persisted. Calling counsel to the bench, Judge Older stated: “I have come to the regretful conclusion during the course of the trial that Mr. Kanarek appears to be totally without scruples, ethics, and professional responsibility so far as the trial of this lawsuit is concerned, and I want the record to clearly reflect that.”
KANAREK “May I be sworn?”
THE COURT “Mr. Kanarek, I wouldn’t believe you if you were.”
With the defense arguments out of the way, I spent an entire afternoon reviewing the eyewitness testimony of Linda Kasabian. Among the instructions Judge Older was going to give the jury was one regarding the testimony of an accomplice. Both Fitzgerald and Kanarek had read the start of it: “The testimony of an accomplice ought to be viewed with distrust.” They stopped there, however. I read the jury the rest: “This does not mean that you may arbitrarily disregard such testimony, but you should give it the weight to which you find it to be entitled after examining it with care and caution in the light of all the evidence in this case.”
I then took the evidence of other witnesses, totally independent of Linda Kasabian, and showed how it confirmed or supported her testimony. Linda testified that Watson shot Parent four times. Dr. Noguchi testified that Parent was shot four times. Linda testified that Parent slumped over toward the passenger side. The police photographs show Parent slumped over toward the passenger side. Linda testified that Watson slit the screen horizontally. Officer Whisenhunt testified that the screen was slit horizontally. For the night of the Tate murders alone, I noted forty-five instances where other evidence confirmed Linda’s account.
I concluded: “Ladies and gentlemen, the fingerprint evidence, the firearms evidence, the confessions, and all of the other evidence would convince the world’s leading skeptic that Linda Kasabian was telling the truth.”
I then cited every single piece of evidence against each of the defendants, starting with the girls and ending with Manson himself. I also noted that there were 238 references in the transcript to Manson’s domination over the daily lives of his Family and his co-defendants. The inference that he must have also been dominating and directing them on the two nights of murder was unmistakable, I pointed out.