This week the California Board of Parole Hearings will consider parole for Susan Atkins, who was an integral part of the Charles Manson murders. August 16, 2009 will mark her 40th anniversary of being incarcerated. Atkins, by her own admission, stabbed the pregnant Sharon Tate 16 times and then wrote the word “pig” in blood on a wall. Atkins said Tate “asked me to let her baby live. ... I told her I didn’t have any mercy on her.” All in all she was involved in the murders of at lest 7 people. Atkins was sentenced to death but her sentence was commuted to life in prison due to a Supreme Court decision temporarily invalidating the death penalty in 1972.

Atkins has by all accounts been a model prisoner since her conviction, and has apparently embraced religion and been repentant for her crimes. In 2008 she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She has had a leg amputated, is paralyzed over half her body, cannot get out of bed, and is not expected to live more than a few more months. The cost for Atkins’ medical care since she was hospitalized on March 18, 2008 has reportedly surpbumed $1.15 million with additional cost of over $300,000 to guard her hospital room.

Tate’s sister has said that Atkins should never be released – stating ”Thirty one years ago I sat in a courtroom with a jury and watched with others. I saw a young woman who giggled, snickered and shouted out insults, even while testifying about my daughter’s last breath, she laughed. My family was ripped apart. If Susan Atkins is released to rejoin her family, where is the justice?”

So if you were on the parole board, what would you do?

As long as she’s in prison, she’s costing the taxpayers money.

Trying to live on her own would be more punishment for her than living in the prison hospital, as it is. I would let her go free.