Gov. Gavin Newsom will not challenge a California appellate court’s decision to allow parole for Leslie Van Houten, moving the former follower of Charles Manson closer to release following more than 50 years behind bars.
“The governor is disappointed by the Court of Appeal’s decision to release Ms. Van Houten, but will not pursue further action as efforts to further appeal are unlikely to succeed,” Newsom’s communications director, Erin Mellon, said in a statement Friday.
Van Houten, 73, is serving a life sentence for helping Manson and members of the cult leader’s “family” kill Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in August 1969.
Van Houten was 19 at the time of the LaBianca murders, for which she was convicted along with Manson and fellow “family” members Susan Atkins, Charles “Tex” Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel.
The May decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeal marked the first time a court had overruled a governor’s denial of parole to a Manson follower.
Manson and his followers were sentenced to death in 1971, but the sentences were commuted to life in prison after capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional in 1972.
Since then, Van Houten has been recommended for parole several times and has had more than two dozen parole hearings. Each recommendation was denied by Newsom or his predecessor, then Gov. Jerry Brown.
Newsom, who denied Van Houten’s last parole recommendation, in 2022, had a 10-day window to contest the appellate court’s decision, which would have required filing a petition to the California Supreme Court.
“More than 50 years after the Manson cult committed these brutal offenses, the victims’ families still feel the impact, as do all Californians,” Mellon said.
