In writing about Charles Manson follower and convicted
murderer Susan Atkins, and her attempt to get out of
prison on "compassionate release,"
my friend Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman
reminds us what justice is, or at least should
be, about:
Even her prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, endorsed the idea.
"She's already paid substantially for her crime, close to 40
years behind bars," he told The Los Angeles Times. "She has
terminal cancer. The mercy she was asking for is so minuscule."
But the parole board unanimously refused. No doubt the board
members recalled that in a 1993 parole hearing, Atkins
acknowledged that when she had her own opportunity to grant
clemency, she chose not to. Tate begged Atkins to spare her
baby, to no avail.
"Compassionate release" already has a bad name in this country
because it was the basis for Scotland's decision to free the
only person convicted in the 1988 airline bombing over
Lockerbie, which killed 270 people. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was
serving a life sentence but, afflicted with terminal prostate
cancer, was sent home to Libya to live out his remaining time
on Earth.
Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill defended the
decision by saying, "Our justice system demands that judgment
be imposed but compassion available." He noted that the killer
"now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power. It is one that
no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or
overrule. It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to
die."
If we are going to rely on the Almighty in these matters,
though, I would prefer that pleas for clemency from convicted
killers also be addressed to Him. The truth is we are all going
to die, and if we prefer not to do it in prison, we have the
option of not committing crimes whose punishment might get in
the way of our last wishes.
People who commit a monstrous crime should do their time and
spare the rest of us a request for the sort of compassion that
they refused to grant others. The purpose of punishment is
to, well, punish. In the case of Susan Atkins (and Abdel
Baset al-Megrahi), she deserves to be punished until her last
breath in this world.
