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This thread is equally risible to the Harvey Weinstein/Sex Scandal/I’m-more-moral-than-you thread that unfortunately took hold after the Weinstein thing broke.
Manson was revolting, huh? Glad you moral midgets helped the rest of us figure that out.
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Actually California *did* have a death penalty back then. Manson was sentenced to die under it, but a group of legislators pretending to be judges back in the day declared the death penalty statute Manson was properly sentenced under "unconstitutional" (which meant emptying Death Row completely at the time, including Charlie and Sirhan Sirhan) and thus, Charlie was able to get free room and board and medical care courtesy of the taxpayers for 45 years instead as his "punishment".
It wasn't legislators who decided the death penalty had been unconstitutional, it was the United States Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia who decided that the death penalty, as it was being applied nationwide, was unconstitutional. To the extent the legislature acted, it was passing laws in accordance with the Supreme Court's ruling. Manson's death sentence was then commuted. I doubt anyone other than Manson was happy with that result, but it was what the law required.
The Supreme Court later in Gregg v. Georgia determined that legislative changes to the way capital punishment was to be handled were sufficient to make such a punishment constitutional. But that wouldn't help in Manson's case since the way his sentence had been imposed was not constitutionally permissible. I don't know if it would have even be legally permissible, but to get the death penalty against Manson they would have had to give him a new trial and hope that he was both convicted and that the death penalty was imposed.
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