On at least one occasion Charles Manson was heard telling Ronald Hughes that he, “…never wanted to see him in the courtroom again.” That was the last time anyone ever saw him. Hughes disappeared during a two-week recess where Judge Older had to appoint a replacement, Irving Kanarek, to continue as the lead attorney for Manson and the others.
Sep 11, 2020 · Charles Manson's defense lawyer, Irving Kanarek, dead at 100 Manson orchestrated 2 nights of brutal home invasion murders in Los Angeles in August 1969
Oct 05, 2001 · Paul J. Fitzgerald, a pugnacious former public defender who became the lead defense attorney in the bizarre 1970 murder trial of cult leader Charles Manson and his followers, has died. He was 64....
Sep 04, 2020 · Sept. 3, 2020. Irving Kanarek, a Los Angeles lawyer who defended Charles Manson in the cult killings of the actress Sharon Tate and six other people, and Jimmy Smith, whose murder of a police ...
Van Houten's first attorney, Donald Barnett, was dismissed after crossing Manson. Her second lawyer, Marvin Part, wanted to show that Van Houten was "insane in a way that is almost science fiction." Part saw her crime as influenced by LSD and Charles Manson, but Van Houten saw it differently: "I was influenced by the war in Viet Nam and TV."
The next night Manson went along with his group for a random murder. He told his followers to kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, who were sitting on their couch in their home.
Manson Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi said in his book, “Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders,” that reporters focused too much on Kanarek’s “bombast and missed his effectiveness,” though Bugliosi was largely critical of the lawyer. Kanarek, born in Seattle in 1920, worked in the aerospace industry before becoming an attorney in ...
Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. The defense attorney who represented Charles Manson in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders and continued to maintain Manson’s innocence after his conviction reportedly died last week at age 100. Irving Kanarek was known as loud and combative in the courtroom – by the third day of testimony in ...
Kanarek, born in Seattle in 1920, worked in the aerospace industry before becoming an attorney in California in 1957. Of Manson, Kanarek said he was “personable” and continued to claim his client had “nothing” to do with the murders of actress Sharon Tate, supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary, and others.
He hoped to show that Van Houten was not acting independently, but was completely controlled in her actions by Manson . This strategy contradicted Manson's plan to allow fellow family members to implicate themselves in the crimes, clearing him of all involvement.
In his book Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi wrote that Sandra Good, an associate of Manson and a close friend of devoted Manson family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, claimed that Manson family members had killed "35 to 40 people" and that, "Hughes was the first of the retaliation murders.".
Judge Older denied the request. By week's end, Hughes had been missing for two weeks. When the court reconvened, Manson and the women created a disturbance suggesting that Judge Older "did away with Ronald Hughes," which resulted in their being removed again from the courtroom.
Retired Ventura County sheriff Charlie Rudd, who was assigned to investigate Hughes' disappearance, stated that he felt Hughes' death was accidental because there were no signs of foul play. Rudd believes that Hughes was stranded by the rainstorm which caused the creek to swell.
Initially, he signed on as the attorney for Manson, but was replaced by Irving Kanarek two weeks before the start of the trial. Hughes eventually represented Leslie Van Houten in the Tate–LaBianca murder trial.
Attorney Stephen Kay, who helped Bugliosi prosecute members of the family, stated that while he is "on the fence" about the family's involvement in Hughes' death, Manson had open contempt for Hughes during the trial.
Hughes eventually represented Leslie Van Houten in the Tate–LaBianca murder trial. He had failed the bar exam three times before passing and had never tried a case. Hughes, a onetime conservative, was called "the hippie lawyer" due to his intimate knowledge of the hippie subculture.
Paul J. Fitzgerald, a pugnacious former public defender who became the lead defense attorney in the bizarre 1970 murder trial of cult leader Charles Manson and his followers, has died. He was 64.
Krenwinkel attorney--An obituary Friday on defense attorney Paul J. Fitzgerald mischaracterized the role of prosecutor Stephen Kay in the 1970 murder trial of cult leader Charles Manson and his followers. Kay assisted Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent T. Bugliosi, who, as lead prosecutor, faced off against Fitzgerald. Also, the story suggested that Bugliosi believed Manson family member Patricia Krenwinkel could have avoided guilty verdicts if Fitzgerald had defended her better. Bugliosi’s criticism applied only to Fitzgerald’s defense of Krenwinkel in the murders of Leno and Rosemary La Bianca; he did not believe that Krenwinkel could have gone free on charges that she helped kill actress Sharon Tate and others.
The worst moment for Fitzgerald came during the penalty phase, when his client joined Atkins and Van Houten in confessing, in horrifying detail, that they and Tex Watson, another Manson clan member, had killed the victims. “It was devastating,” Deutsch recalled. Fitzgerald looked shellshocked, even though he had been warned of their plan by the women.
Fitzgerald later represented Krenwinkel and Van Houten in parole hearings. “He thought Krenwinkel’s story was very tragic--a middle-class, normal, nice girl who, through the use of drugs and basic brainwashing, turned into a killer and accessory to murder,” Abramson said.
Fitzgerald was legendary in the legal defense community. As a Los Angeles County public defender in the mid-1960s, he wrote training manuals that led to enduring practices in such key areas as the questioning of prospective jurors.
He never had another case as spectacular. He remained in private practice, representing scores of unsympathetic characters. He was so colorful in his descriptions of some of his cases that Dunne appropriated his language word for word for parts of “Dutch Shea, Jr.,” such as a line about a cunning pimp as “our municipal wart.”
Vincent Bugliosi, the original lead prosecutor, wrote disparagingly of Fitzgerald’s courtroom performance in his 1974 book “Helter Skelter,” calling the attorney’s arguments “disappointing” and suggesting that he bungled Krenwinkel’s chance to “beat the rap.”
Manson, hoping to trigger an apocalyptic race war in America, had planned and ordered the killings, which were executed by his co-defendants, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, and by Mr. Watson.
The defense rested without calling a single witness because, Mr. Kanarek said, the three women wanted to confess on the stand to “save” Mr. Manson. In 1971, all four defendants were convicted of murder and conspiracy and sentenced to die in the gas chamber. Mr. Kanarek scoffed at the rulings and the trial.
After the trial, Mr. Kanarek prospered for a few years, but he never again made national headlines. In 1989, he was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct and hospitalized for a psychiatric evaluation. In 1990, he lost his law license over unpaid debts. He later lived in motel rooms.
Kasabian was granted immunity and became the state’s star witness in a trial that began in July 1970 and lasted six months. (Charles Watson, a cult member who joined in the killings, was committed to a mental institution and not tried with the others.)
In 1990, he lost his law license over unpaid debts. He later lived in motel rooms. Irving Allen Kanarek was born in Seattle on May 12, 1920, to Meyer and Beatrice (Prupis) Kanarek. His father was an insurance salesman. Irving and his sister, Zillah, grew up in Seattle and attended Garfield High School.
Smith was paroled in 1982, but was in and out of prison for the rest of his life on parole violations. He and Mr. Powell both died in prison in their late 70s. Mr. Kanarek with reporters outside a Los Angeles courtroom in 1970 during Mr. Manson’s murder trial.
Sept. 3, 2020. Irving Kanarek , a Los Angeles lawyer who defended Charles Manson in the cult killings of the actress Sharon Tate and six other people, and Jimmy Smith, whose murder of a police officer was chillingly retold in Joseph Wambaugh’s 1973 best seller “The Onion Field,” died on Wednesday in Garden Grove, Calif. He was 100.
A prison psychiatrist described Manson at age 18 as suffering "psychic trauma," but still "an extremely sensitive boy who has not yet given up in terms of securing some love and affection from the world.". Released on parole in 1958, Manson took to pimping. In June 1960, Manson was arrested on a Mann Act charge.
The Defendants in the Charles Manson trial. As a young teen, Susan Atkins sang in her church choir in San Jose, California and nursed her mother, who was dying of cancer. After her mother's death, however, her life went seriously off course.
Atkins, then twenty-two, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1970. Her sentence was reduced to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court declared the state's death penalty unconstitutional.
The next night, Krenwinkel stabbed Rosemary LaBianca and carved the word "WAR" on Leno LaBianca's stomach. Krenwinkel was arrested near her aunt's home in Mobile, Alabama on December 1, 1969. Krenwinkel had gone to Alabama, she said much later, because she feared Manson would find her and kill her.
Charles Manson was born to a promiscuous sixteen-year-old girl named Kathleen Maddox on November 12, 1934 in Cincinnati. His presumed father was a "Colonel Scott" of Ashland Kentucky, whom Manson never met. When Manson was five, his mother received a five-year sentence for armed robbery, and Manson moved in with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia. His mother reclaimed him in 1942 when she was paroled, but within five years her heavy drinking led to Manson's being placed in a caretaking school in Indiana. School officials described young Manson as moody and suffering a persecution complex--but "likable" during those periods he was feeling happy.
While living in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in 1967, Atkins met Charles Manson. In her grand jury testimony, Atkins said Manson "gave me the faith in myself to be able to know that I am a women....I gave myself to him.".
In August 1969, Watson became the principal killer in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Announcing his arrival at the Tate residence, Watson said, "I am the Devil and I'm here to do the Devil's business." He shot Steven Parent and Jay Sebring, and stabbed to death Voytek Frykowski, Abigail Folger, Sharon Tate, and Leno LaBianca. After the Tate murders, Watson told Manson, "Boy, it sure was helter skelter."
Even before his remarkable performance as the defense attorney for Charles Manson in the Tate-LaBianca murder case, Irving Kanarek earned a reputation as an obstructionist of the first order. He was frequently censured by judges. One judge bluntly called him "the most obstructionist man I have ever met." Kanarek has a purpose for his obstructionism tactics: his goal seemed to be to confuse juries and knock opposing attorneys off stride, especially in cases where the evidence against his client was overwhelming.
In March 1970, Ronald Hughes--Manson's first attorney--suggested to Manson that Kanarek enter the case as his attorney. Although calling Karerek "the worst man in town I could pick," Manson requested that Kanarek be substituted as his attorney two weeks before the start of trial. Prosecutor Vince Bugliosi strongly objected to the substitution of Kanarek as Manson's attorney, but Judge Older found no legal ground for denying Manson's request and Kanarek.
Kanarek may have established some sort of record for objections in the Manson trial. He objected nine times during the prosecution's opening statement, and by the third day of trial had registered more than 200 objections when the press stopped counting. Frequently, Kanarek's objection were made in "shotgun" form, including many suggested grounds that were totally inapplicable: "Leading and suggestive; no foundation; conclusion and hearsay." Other times his objections were intended to influence the jury. For example, he objected to the testimony of Linda Kasabian by declaring, "Object, Your Honor, on the grounds this witness is not competent because she is insane!" Kanarek also bombarded the court with motions, many of them novel to say the least, such as a motion to have "Mr. Manson suppressed from evidence" as the product of an illegal search. Kanarek raised eyebrows for asking bizarre questions, such as when he asked Kasabian (during his seven-day cross-examination after Kasabian's direct testimony in which she revealed she had taken LSD about fifty times), "Describe what happened on trip number twenty-three."
During the course of the trial, Charles Manson told the bailiff, "I am going to have Bugliosi and the judge killed." Knowing Manson's record, officials did not take this to be an idle threat and a bodyguard was assigned to accompany Bugliosi during the remainder of the trial. Bugliosi received numerous hang-up calls during the middle of the night (even when he changed to an unlisted number), but no attempts were made on his life. After Manson's sentencing, Bugliosi had, at Manson's request, a ninety-minute conversation with Manson, in which the convicted killer told him, "I don't have hard feelings" and that he did "a fantastic" job in convicting him.
In his seven-day summation--which Judge Older called not an "argument but a filibuster"--, Kanarek argued that the female defendants killed their victims not for Manson, but out of love for Tex Watson.
Three days after the LaBianca murders, Kasabian slipped out of Spahn Ranch in a borrowed car and headed for Taos, New Mexico, where she rejoined her husband. After returning to California to retrieve her child, Tanya, Kasabian hitchhiked first to Florida and then to her mother's home in New Hampshire.
Bugliosi's chief goal in the Tate-LaBianca case was securing a first-degree murder conviction of Charles Manson. He identified the key to the case as proving that Manson had total dominion over other Family members. With the important testimony of Linda Kasabian and others, he was successful in doing so.
Nov. 30– For nearly four months , the prosecution methodically presented evidence in the bizarre Los Angeles murder trial of Charles Manson and his co-defendants. Last week the defense took over – and began with the stunning announcement that the defense rested.
MANSON CONFESSION; Tells of Order To Kill Hinman
Nonetheless, the girls went along with obedient enthusiasm. But then Lawyers Hughes, Kanarek and Shinn surprised perhaps even themselves. They all agreed with Fitzgerald that their duty to their clients lay in keeping them off the stand.
Sometimes in tears, sometimes in anger, most often with restrained sincerity, Charles Manson told his story to the court. Excerpts from his testimony:
Arrayed alongside this unusual trio – and occasionally against it – was Paul Fitzgerald, 33, assigned by the public defender’s office and one of its best men. Although he was the unofficial leader of the umbrella defense, Fitzgerald was often undercut by his colleagues as well as the defendants. He usually cross-examined prosecution witnesses first, then had to watch in agony while Hughes and Kanarek clumsily plowed his points under. Kanarek in particular sometimes left a prosecution witness sounding more impressive than when he started. With bitter frustration, Fitzgerald said, “It’s like living in a concentration camp.”
The third member of the courtroom team was Daye Shinn, 53, a former used-car salesman of Korean descent, who specializes in immigration cases for wealthy clients seeking Mexican maids. Manson took him on mainly to handle movie, record and publishing rights.
Tate Case Lawyer Can’t Be Found
Bugliosi, in his opening statement for the prosecution, indicated that his "principal witness" would be Linda Kasabian, a Manson Family member who accompanied the killers to both the Tate and LaBianca residences. The prosecution turned to Kasabian, with a promise of prosecutorial immunity for her testimony, when Susan Atkins--probably in response to threats from Manson--announced that she would not testify at the trial. Bugliosi promised the jury that the evidence would show Manson had a motive for the murders that was "perhaps even more bizarre than the murders themselves."
Atkins appeared before the Grand Jury on December 5. She told the grand jury she was "in love with the reflection" of Char les Manson and that there was "no limit" to what she would do for him. In an emotionless voice, she described the horrific events in the early morning hours of August 9 at the Tate residence.
Kasabian told the jury that no Family member ever refused an order from Charles Manson: "We always wanted to do anything and everything for him." After describing what she saw of the Tate murders, Kasabian was asked by Bugliosi about the return to Spahn Ranch:
When Springer told detectives that Manson had said the Tate killers "wrote something on the...refrigerator in blood"--"something about pigs"-- , the detectives knew they might be onto something. Still, it struck them as odd that anyone would confess to several murders to someone that they barely knew.
A subsequent investigation revealed he had disappeared over the weekend while camping in the remote Sespe Hot Springs area northwest of Los Angeles. It is widely believed that Hughes was ordered murdered by Manson for his determination to pursue a defense strategy at odds with that favored by Man son. Hughes had made clear his hope to show that Van Houten was not acting independently--as Manson suggested--but was completely controlled in her actions by Manson.
On November 6, she told another inmate, Virginia Graham, an almost unbelievable tale. She told of "a beautiful cat" named Charles Manson. She told of murder: of finding Sharon Tate, in bed with her bikini bra and underpants, of her victim's futile cries for help, of tasting Tate's blood.
On November 18, 1969, the District Attorney and his staff selected Vincent Bugliosi to be the chief prosecutor in the Tate-LaBianca case. The choice was no doubt influenced by Bugliosi's impressive record of winning 103 convictions in 104 felony trials.
Ronald W. Hughes (March 16, 1935 – c. November 1970) was an American attorney who represented Leslie Van Houten, a member of the Manson Family. Hughes disappeared while on a camping trip during a ten-day recess from the Tate-LaBianca murder trial in November 1970. His body was found in March 1971, but his cause of death could not be determined. At least one Manson Fa…
Ronald Hughes was among the first lawyers to meet with Charles Manson in December 1969. Initially, he signed on as the attorney for Manson, but was replaced by Irving Kanarek two weeks before the start of the trial.
Hughes eventually represented Leslie Van Houten in the Tate–LaBianca murder trial. He had failed the bar exam three times before passing and had never tried a case. Hughes, a onetime conservat…
On November 27, 1970, Hughes decided to take a camping trip in a remote area near Sespe Hot Springs in Ventura County, California. According to James Forsher and Lauren Elder, two friends who accompanied Hughes on the trip, heavy rains which had caused flash floods in the area had mired their Volkswagenin mud. Forsher and Elder hitchhiked their way out, while Hughes decided to stay in the area until November 29. As the rains continued, the wilderness area was evacuate…
Over the following months, police conducted more than a dozen searches of the area where Hughes was last seen. After receiving an anonymous tip in March 1971, police also searched in the area surrounding the Barker Ranch in Inyo County where Manson and his associates had previously lived.
On March 29, 1971, the same day the jury returned death penaltyverdicts against all the defenda…
In his book Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi wrote that Sandra Good, an associate of Manson and a close friend of devoted Manson family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, claimed that Manson family members had killed "35 to 40 people" and that, "Hughes was the first of the retaliation murders." In the afterword to the 25th anniversary edition of the book, Bugliosi also said that he received a call in 1976 from a former member of the Manson family, "understandably wanting to …
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1. ^ The Charles Manson (Tate–LaBianca Murder) Trial: Other Key Figures
2. ^ (Bugliosi 1994, pp. 503–504) harv error: no target: CITEREFBugliosi1994 (help)
3. ^ "Charles Manson and the Manson Family". Archived from the original on 2007-08-19. Retrieved 2007-08-17.
• Ronald Hughes at Find a Grave