Manson parole hearing tomorrow

Charles Manson is up for parole again. At his hearing tomorrow, state-appointed attorney Dejon R. Lewis will argue that Manson should be moved from Corcoran State Prison to a psychiatric hospital. Manson has said he won’t be attending the hearing. In fact, Lewis hasn’t even met him. An interview was scheduled to help Lewis prepare for the parole hearing, but Manson refused to leave his cell. From CNN:

“I mean the issues in regard to his psychiatric makeup and the health concerns that a 76- or 77-year-old man would need,” (Lewis) explained. “What he did was heinous from what he said. How many years has he been in prison? I was just a little boy, but after all these years, has there been any rehabilitation? I don’t know. He probably needs more hospitalization than incarceration…”

Manson has not been a model inmate. A prosecutor who handled his parole hearings told CNN in 2009 that Manson had a “laundry list of violations in prison.” In the past five years, he was punished for threatening a peace officer and for having a weapon, the latter happening in October when he had a sharpened pen, a corrections department spokeswoman said.

Manson also had a contraband cell phone twice, the latest time in January 2011. Prison officials said they tracked phone numbers in California, Oregon and Maine.

Manson has been an inmate in the 24-cell protective housing unit of the California State Prison Corcoran since 1989, said Thornton, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman. The unit is for inmates whose safety would be endangered in a general population prison yard, and it still functions like such a yard, she said.

“Charles Manson to have parole hearing, but he may not attend”