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Gov. Jerry Brown Friday rejected parole for former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, who was convicted of the 1969 killings of grocers Leno and Rosemary La Bianca at their Los Feliz home. A state parole board had recommended in April that Van Houten, now 66, be paroled. “When considered as a whole, I find the evidence shows that she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison,” Brown wrote in his decision rejecting parole.

CHINO, Calif. -- A California panel recommended parole Thursday for former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten more than four decades after she went to prison for the notorious killings of a wealthy grocer and his wife. The decision will now undergo administrative review by the Board of Parole Hearings. If upheld it goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, who has the final word on whether the now-66-year-old Van Houten is released from the California Institution for Women in Chino. Brown previously blocked the parole of former Manson follower Bruce Davis, citing the gravity of his offenses and his refusal to...

Perhaps law professors should confine themselves to explaining the law to their students and showing how it works based upon the best evidence available. "The American legal professoriate has tirelessly pursued an expose' of American sentencing policy as unjustly harsh," George Mason University Law School professor Craig Lerner wrote last year in an article which appeared in the Wisconsin Law Review. "If Exhibit A in this critique is the persistence of the death penalty on American soil, Exhibit B has become the prevalence of LWOP [life without parole] sentences—and not simply the prevalence, but the haphazard and irrational nature with...

Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) took a dig at his opponent Dr. Ben Carson, who is under scrutiny amid the suggestion of discrepancies in the details of his past. Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked, “So just curious, I mentioned Ben Carson because we’ve focused a lot on him this morning and some of the discrepancies that have come out of his memoir. I’m wondering if any of the books you’ve written were put under the same scrutiny, would they find voids and holes and does that matter in terms of character and honesty?”...

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – After 43 years in prison, parole officials again say it is safe to free Charles Manson follower Bruce Davis. Parole commissioners recommended Thursday that Davis be paroled in the 1969 slayings of musician Gary Hinman and stuntman Donald "Shorty" Shea. It's the fourth time for such a recommendation, but the 72-year-old Davis remains imprisoned at California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo.

The second of three convicts in the infamous Chowchilla kidnapping is a free man and believed to be in the Bay Area. James Schoenfeld, 63, who was among three convicted in the 1976 kidnapping of 26 children and their school bus driver, was released on parole Friday after nearly 40 years in prison. Schoenfeld was freed from the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo after Gov. Jerry Brown allowed the parole to go ahead a week ago, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton said. He is expected to join his brother, Richard, who was paroled last year....

Will the U.S. cave into an Arab nation’s pressure—witnessed firsthand by Judicial Watch—to release a senior Al Qaeda operative and Osama bin Laden advisor who has already been refused discharge by President Obama’s special Guantanamo parole board? The terrorist is a Kuwaiti national named Faez Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari and he’s been a prisoner at the U.S. military compound in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 2002. His Department of Defense (DOD) file says he has a history of participating in violent militant Islamic activities, poses a high-risk threat to the United States, has numerous connections to senior Al Qaeda members and was...

The state parole board has received 500 letters in anticipation of a hearing today over whether convicted cop-killer Joel Lee Compton will be released from prison. But to the widow of Albuquerque police officer Gerald Cline – who Compton shot and killed 32 years ago – one particular letter stands out. “We were very touched, and we appreciate it,” said Yolanda Cline. “You’re not defined by what your relatives did. You can’t choose them.” In fewer than 200 words, Sharron Compton, sister of Joel Lee Compton, spells out why her brother should not be released from prison despite three decades...

**SNIP** That troubling question is increasingly being repeated at parole hearings across California as the number of inmates with life sentences who are granted release skyrockets under Gov. Jerry Brown. Currently nearly 2,000 murderers, hit men and robbers who spent decades locked up and now range from middle-aged to elderly are trying to find their way. Most succeed, but each month a few more fail, returning to the drugs and crime that put them in prison and raising public safety concerns. California is one of four states in which the governor has final authority over parole decisions. A Times analysis...

The US corrections population dropped to its lowest point since 2003, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday. The number of Americans in prison, jail, parole, or probation dropped to less than 6.9 million in 2013, down 41,500 compared to 2012 and hitting the lowest point since 2003, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Until 2008, the corrections population had been steadily growing for decades as all levels of government enforced tough-on-crime policies — particularly against drug offenses — that tied up more people in the criminal justice system. But states and the federal government, facing...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The man who killed "Hee Haw" star and Grand Ole Opry performer David "Stringbean" Akeman and his wife, Estelle, four decades ago has been granted parole. Melissa McDonald with the Tennessee Board of Parole told News 2 the board voted Wednesday morning to grant John Brown parole. Brown has served 40 years of his 198-year sentence for killing the Akemans in 1973 as they returned to their home following a performance at the Opry.

FULL TITLE: Two sex offenders accused of the rape and murder of four prostitutes while on parole and wearing GPS trackers face death penalty case after grand jury hearing Two men accused of the rape and murder of four prostitutes while on parole face the possible death penalty after a grand jury in California agreed to send them forward for trial. Steven Dean Gordon, 45 and Franc Cano, 28, both of Anaheim, California were both indicted by the grand jury in Orange County for four felony counts of special circumstances murder during the commission of rape, kidnapping, lying in wait...

A Santa Rosa man convicted for a second time in a series of gang rapes was again sentenced Tuesday to 75 years to life in prison. Rogelio Carlos-Zaragoza, 29, was convicted of abducting women in Santa Rosa in 2006 and 2009 and driving two of them to a remote Windsor vineyard, where he raped them with up to three other men. He was caught with his older brother, Leonel Carlos-Zaragoza, after grabbing an 18-year-old victim at knifepoint along Dutton Avenue and getting in a chase with CHP officers on Highway 101. Both men were convicted in 2010. The brother is...

LOS ANGELES – Gov. Jerry Brown reversed a parole board and denied on Friday the release of a former Charles Manson follower who served more than 43 years in prison. It was the third time a California governor denied the release of Bruce Davis, 71, a member of the murderous Manson Family who was convicted in the 1969 slayings of musician Gary Hinman and stuntman Donald "Shorty" Shea.

Charles Manson Granted Parole Corcoran, California – One of the most famous killers in the American prison system will be walking free. On Tuesday Charles Manson, who is now 79 years old, was granted parole by the California Board of Parole and authorized by California Governor Jerry Brown. According to California Board of Parole Hearings Commissioner John Peck, prison overcrowding forced the prison board to re-evaluate prisoners that are elderly or those with serious illnesses. In February a panel of federal judges ordered California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) two more years to reduce chronic prison overcrowding that has cost the...

Rene Lima-Marin had been free for nearly 6 years. Living a good life with his wife and children since his release in 2008, but that was all about to change for the convicted armed robber. Marin, originally from Aurora, Colorado opened the door this past January, 2014 only to discover the police who were there to arrest him. In the end, a court clerk’s error led to the release of Marin, 90 years to soon. Colorado authorities did not discover the mistake till January and immediately sent him back to prison to serve the rest of his 98 year sentence....

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former Manson Family member Bruce Davis, who was sentenced to life in prison for two 1969 murders carried out with other members of the cult, was granted parole on Wednesday by a California parole board, although it was not certain he would be freed. Davis' parole must still be affirmed by California Governor Jerry Brown, who reversed a similar decision by the same board last year, saying that the 71-year-old convicted killer remained a danger to the public.

**SNIP** In their 2012 appearances before parole officials, both men admitted their roles in killing officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones, 33. The officers were shot multiple times after they'd responded to a report of a domestic dispute at a Harlem housing complex on May 21, 1971. Prosecutors said it was a trap set by Bell and Bottom. "I began to see things in a way that I wanted to come clean," Bell said in 2012, according to a transcript. "I wanted to accept that fact that I committed this offense, I wanted to show remorse, but I didn't really...

Former U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna has won parole and will be released from Fort Leavenworth on March 14, his mother, Vicki Behenna, said Wednesday. Behenna, who was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone, learned early Wednesday morning and called his parents in Edmond, where he will return next month. “We go between tears and laughing,” Vicki Behenna told The Oklahoman. “I’m just so thankful. I’m just so very very thankful. It’s wonderful.”

Why would someone who opposes draconian federal mandatory minimum sentences oppose efforts to cut California's prison population by about 9,600 inmates? Because the federal system and the California system are two different animals. U.S. prosecutors have been known to throw the full weight of the federal government toward putting low-level, nonviolent offenders away for decades. In California, the focus has been on violent and serious offenders. In the past several years, Sacramento has reduced the state prison population by about a quarter, or more than 40,000 inmates. Gov. Jerry Brown's 2011 "realignment" plan diverted nonviolent, non-serious and non-sex offenders to...