I noted some of the reasons why this was preposterous, among them the ridiculousness of the docile, subservient Linda taking over the leadership of the Family in just one month. “Only one person ordered these murders, ladies and gentlemen, and his initials are CM. He also has an aka: JC. And he is in that lockup right now listening to me…”
The most preposterous thing about all this was that supposedly for one and a half years both Sadie and Gypsy kept this secret in their perjurous bosoms. They not only didn’t tell the other members of the Family, they didn’t even tell Manson’s attorney, though both testified they loved and would willingly die for Charlie.
“And why didn’t they tell him about this motive? Because it didn’t exist. It was recently fabricated.”
As for Manson’s alibi, that he was with Stephanie Schram in Devil’s Canyon on both of these nights, “Isn’t it strange that all of Mr. Manson’s X’d-out slaves have testified to this during the penalty trial, and the very person, Stephanie Schram, whom they claim Manson was with, testified that Manson was not with her?”
I then addressed myself to the issue of whether the four defendants should receive the death penalty.
The strongest argument that can be made in support of capital punishment is, I feel, deterrence—that it may save additional lives. Unfortunately, under California law the prosecution could not argue deterrence, only retribution.
“These weren’t typical murders, ladies and gentlemen. This was a one-sided war where unspeakable atrocities were committed. If all of these defendants don’t receive the death penalty, the typical first-degree murderer only deserves ten days in the County Jail.”
As for Fitzgerald’s contention that killing these defendants would not bring the seven victims back to life, “If we were to accept that line of reasoning, no one would ever be punished for any crime, since punishing a person does not remove the fact that the crime was committed.” For example, “Don’t punish a man for arson because the punishment is not going to rebuild the building.”
In California, if a defendant is seventeen years of age or younger, he or she cannot be sentenced to death. Though Fitzgerald repeatedly called the three female defendants “children,” I reminded the jury that Leslie was twenty-one, Susan twenty-two, Katie twenty-three. “They are adults by any standard, and completely responsible for their acts.”
In regard to the defense contention that the three female defendants were insane, I reminded the jury that Dr. Hochman, the only psychiatrist to examine all three, said they are not and have never been insane.
Dr. Hochman testified that we are all capable of killing, I noted. “He did not say that we are all capable of murder. There is a vast difference between killing—as in justifiable homicide, self-defense, or defense of others—and murder. And no one can convince me, ladies and gentlemen, that all of us are capable of murdering strangers for no reason whatsoever like these three female defendants did.
“It takes a special type of person to do what they did. It takes a person who places no value on the life of a fellow human being.
“True, Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten committed these murders because Charles Manson told them to, but they would never have committed these murders in a million years if they did not already have murder in their guts, in their system. Manson merely told them to do what they were already capable of doing.”
Moreover, there was no evidence that Manson forced Watson and the girls to murder for him. “In fact, the inference is that they wanted to go along. That seemed to be the general feeling in the Family. Witness the statement of Cathy Gillies. Witness Susan Atkins’ telling Juan Flynn, ‘We’re going to get some fucking pigs.’ Does that sound like someone who is being forced to go out?”
Manson ordered the murders, but Watson and the three girls personally committed them “because they wanted to. Make no mistake about that. If they did not want to murder these victims, all they had to do was not do it.”
I examined now the backgrounds of the three girls. Like the other female members of the Family, they had “one common denominator among them. It was obvious that each of them had a revulsion, an antipathy, a seething feeling of disgust for society, for their own parents.” Each of the three girls had dropped out of society before even meeting Charles Manson; each had taken LSD and other drugs before meeting Manson; and each had rejected her real family before meeting Manson.
Looking right at juror Jean Roseland, who had two teenage daughters, I said, “Don’t confuse them with the girl-next-door type. These three female defendants had repudiated and renounced their very families and society before they ever met Charles Manson.
“In fact, it was precisely because they had contemptuously disavowed and rejected their families and society that they ended up with Charles Manson. That is the very reason.
“Manson was simply the catalyst, the moving force that translated their pre-existing disgust and hatred for society and human beings into violence.”
I anticipated an argument that I felt Maxwell Keith might give. “The thought certainly may enter your mind that as wicked and as vicious as these three female defendants are, by comparison to Charles Manson they are nowhere as wicked and vicious as he is; therefore, let’s give Manson the death penalty and these three female defendants life imprisonment.
“The only problem with that type of approach is that these female defendants are given credit, as it were, because of Manson’s extreme wickedness and viciousness. Under that type of reasoning, if Adolf Hitler were Charles Manson’s co-defendant, Manson should receive life imprisonment because of the indescribably evil Adolf Hitler.” Rather than compare the three female defendants with Manson, I told the jury, they should evaluate the conduct of each of the defendants and determine whether it warranted the imposition of the death penalty. I then went into the acts of each, starting with Manson, enumerating one by one the reasons they deserved death rather than life.
One question the jury would surely ask, I noted, was: Why no remorse? The answer was simple: “Manson and his co-defendants like to kill human beings. That is why they have no remorse. As Paul Watkins testified, ‘Death is Charlie’s trip.’”
I came to the end of my argument.
“Now the defense attorneys want you to give these defendants a break. Did these defendants give the seven victims in this case a break?
“Now the defense attorneys want you to give their clients another chance. Did these defendants give the seven victims in this case any chance at all?
“Now the defense attorneys want you to have mercy on their clients. Did these defendants have any mercy at all on the seven victims in this case when they begged and pleaded for their lives?”
I then reminded the jurors that nine months earlier, during voir dire, each had told me he would be willing to vote death if he felt this was a proper case. I reiterated: “If the death penalty is to mean anything in the State of California, other than two empty words, this is a proper case.”
I concluded: “On behalf of the People of the State of California, I can’t thank you enough for the enormous public service you have rendered as jurors in this very long, historic trial.”
That night after dinner I said to Gail, “There must be something I have to do tonight.” But there wasn’t. For a year and a half, seven days a week, I had been totally immersed in the case. Now all I could do was listen to the closing arguments of the defense attorneys and wait until the jury reached its verdict.