Van Houten remains in prison on a life sentence after her 1971 conviction and 1978 retrial and conviction for helping Manson and other cult members kill Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in August 1969. She is currently serving a life sentence, but has been recommended for parole multiple times.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has rejected parole recommendations for Van Houten multiple times, and the California Supreme Court denied her last bid for freedom in February 2022.
Van Houten was 19 when she and other followers fatally stabbed the LaBiancas in their home and smeared their blood on the walls.
Tuesday’s court ruling reverses Newsom’s decision to reject Van Houten’s latest appeal. Newsom’s office had argued that Van Houten still presented a danger to society and pointed to discrepancies in her original explanation for why she had fallen in with Manson.
“Van Houten has shown extraordinary rehabilitative efforts, insight, remorse, realistic parole plans, support from family and friends, favorable institutional reports, and, at the time of the Governor’s decision, had received four successive grants of parole,” the judges wrote.
“Although the Governor states Van Houten’s historical factors ‘remain salient,’ he identifies nothing in the record indicating Van Houten has not successfully addressed those factors through many years of therapy, substance abuse programming, and other efforts.”
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