Numerous members of the "Manson Family" are seeking parole from California state prison after serving decades in prison for their notorious string of brutal murders. The followers of Charles Manson committed the murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in a two-night rampage that terrorized the city of Los Angeles, California, in August 1969. The Manson family members were initially sentenced to death following their conviction at trial, only to have their sentences commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down death penalty laws in 1972.

Since that time, Manson family members Susan Atkins, Charles "Tex" Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten have repeatedly been described as model prisoners who have accepted responsibility for their crimes. Susan Atkins is terminally ill with cancer and Charles "Tex" Watson is an ordained minister.  Parole boards, however, continue to reject their bids for release, and a debate rages over whether the four should ever be freed. Atkins, California's longest-serving female inmate requested a "compassionate release" from the California Board of Parole Hearings in July. She has terminal brain cancer, doctors say. The board unanimously denied her request.

By her own admission, Atkins held Tate down as she pleaded for mercy, and stabbed the eight-months-pregnant woman 16 times. In a 1993 parole board hearing, Atkins said Tate "asked me to let  her baby live ... I told her I didn't have any mercy on her."  After stabbing Tate to death, Atkins scrawled the word "pig" in blood on the door of the home Tate shared with her husband, film director Roman Polanski, who was not home at the time. Three of Tate's house guests were also slain, as was a teenager who was visiting the home's caretaker in his cottage out back.

Atkins' release was opposed by Tate's sister, Debra, Los Angeles County prosecutors and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others. However, the former prosecutor who won her conviction, Vincent Bugliosi, said he supported Atkins' request for release based on her medical condition.