Los Angelenos just learned yet another of the consequences of electing a radical leftist as the district attorney.
Neither DA George Gascón nor one of his deputies attended the parole hearing of Manson murderer Bruce Davis because one of the crackpot prosecutor’s new “mandates” is not opposing parole for “lifers.”
Though Davis did not participate in the Manson-directed Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, he was convicted of two others and sentenced to life in prison. Gascón wants him freed.
Now that Gascón has abandoned victims to fend for themselves at parole hearings, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will attend, NBC News reported.
Free the Murderers
Parole boards have routinely denied parole for Charles Manson and the family members involved in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Manson was rejected 12 times before he died in 2017 at age 83.
Yet boards have recommended parole for Davis seven times, the latest in 2019.
The story here, though, is this: A representative of the district attorney’s office has typically attended those hearings to stand with the victims. Not anymore, thanks to Gascón, whose kooky idea of criminal justice includes not prosecuting misdemeanors, as The New American reported in December.
But aside from simply not sending criminals to jail, he wants to free those already there.
“This Office’s default policy is that we will not attend parole hearings and will support in writing the grant of parole for a person who has already served their mandatory minimum period of incarceration,” his office announced in December.
Parole Hearings PDFAmusingly — or perhaps not — Gascón admits that “we are not experts on rehabilitation.”
So because Manson killer Davis has served the mandatory minimum, Gascón thinks the time has come to let him go. So, again, does the parole board.
If Davis had been executed, the families of murder victims wouldn’t be subjected to the torture of reappearing at parole hearings. That aside, Kay Martley, the cousin of Manson’s first target, Gary Hinman, was aghast, NBC News reported:
“I had no one to speak for me,” said Martley, 81, whose cousin Gary Hinman was tortured and killed by Manson followers on July 27, 1969. “I felt like no one cares about the victim’s families anymore. We are totally forgotten.”
Indeed. Gascón cares about criminals. That’s why he won’t prosecute misdemeanors and wants convicted murderers such as Davis put back on the streets.
What Davis Did
Davis was present when Charles Manson initiated the torture-murder of Hinman, and participated in the torture murder of Donald “Shorty” Shea.
Shea’s murder was particularly brutal, as Lori Johnston reported for Medium.com. Davis helped murder Shea with Manson killers Tex Watson, Steven Grogan, and Bill Vance.
The murderers tricked Shea into getting into a car, Johnston wrote in recounting what Davis said at his parole hearing in 2019:
Davis claimed that Watson, sitting in the front passenger seat, was the first to deliver stabs to Shea, who was driving the car, before Grogan, sitting in the backseat with Davis and Vance, hit him in the head with a pipe wrench. Manson drove up after Shorty had been pulled from the car and stabbed Shea in the midsection. It was then that Davis, who said he had known that Shea was going to be killed, was given a machete by Manson with the orders to cut Shorty’s head off. Unable to do so and dropping the machete, Davis instead took the knife offered to him and cut Shorty from the collarbone to the armpit. Having already been stabbed multiple times, Davis did not know whether Shorty was still alive but claimed he was no longer moving. In his 2014 parole hearing, Davis had claimed he wanted to be Manson’s favorite guy.
LA Sheriff Alex Villanueva says he and his deputies will be at parole hearing for victims and their families.
“The DA has elected not to appear in these and that is his prerogative for his agency,” Villanueva said on Facebook. “However we are not going to abandon victims of crime. We are going to stand with them shoulder to shoulder and any help they need in this process, we will be there to represent them.”
Gascón says “victims’ advocates” are available to attend, NBC reported.
