• Bruce Davis Denied Parole

Bruce Davis Denied Parole

Friday, July 8th, 2022

Jul. 8 – Bruce Davis was denied parole at a hearing held today at San Quentin.

Davis, 79, is serving a term of seven years to life for the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea.

Davis has been denied parole 27 times since becoming eligible in 1977. He was recommended for parole in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021, but each grant was reversed during the executive review.

Davis will not have another hearing until 2025.

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16 Responses to Bruce Davis Denied Parole

  1. Billy Esquire says:

    So after all the deaths she was responsible for, Patricia Krenwinkel was recommended for parole for the first time, but Bruce Davis was denied parole, after being recommended for parole 7 times? I guess this all makes sense……in California! 🤪

  2. Michael says:

    Looking forward to reading the transcripts, because this isn’t making much sense to me. I assume there’s a different panel at each meeting, so maybe that accounts for approvals then later denials. Or approvals for someone guilty of seven murders, and denials for someone guilty of two, who had also been approved previously. Hard to figure.

  3. Debra Cee says:

    None of those blood thirsty murderers will ever get out! California may be the state of fruits and nuts, but we the people will never stand for any of them free here.

  4. Matthew says:

    Really makes no sense at all that Pat was recommended and Bruce was not.

  5. Michael says:

    If the parole boards base their decisions on whether or not the offender is rehabilitated and poses no threat to society, then I can see how they would grant parole to PK, who murdered more people than BD, based not on the severity of the crime but on the degree to which they feel the offender is rehabilitated. That could account for granting parole to her and not to him.

    But it still seems weird that they said “yes” to him in earlier hearings then “no” to him this time around.

    Personally I don’t want to see any of them released. But legally, if they meet the standards the board is given, then it goes back to the Governor and I think in PK’s case the outcome is pretty certain.

  6. Fred Bloggs says:

    Maybe the people on the board this time decided to enact some Mansonian “wisdom” in keeping with the weirdness of the subject matter, you know, “no sense makes sense” !

    I guess we react initially to the seemingly illogicality of it all, but in truth, it’s when the transcript comes out that we can have a closer gander and try to follow the threads of thought. I don’t even attempt to try to predict these things anymore {except the Guv’nor’s nixing of any positive result !} because they’ve become almost as unpredictable and boggly~woogle as the Family itself, back in the day.

    Be careful what you sign……
    In Pat’s case, I thought there might be something in the transcript that explained such a mind-boggling decision, but no, there wasn’t. Or at least, I couldn’t find anything she said that was even close to a dramatic departure to anything she’s said for years.

    Perhaps it is felt Bruce is being duplicitous. Maybe someone on the board is a secret true crime junkie and thinks he’s the Zodiac or thinks he blew away Zero. Who knows ? Personally, I’m fascinated to know what happened to reverse the fortunes of someone that had been recommended for parole 7 times. Has dementia taken hold ? Did he break down and confess to 50 years of dishonesty ? Is his account of Charles Watson’s involvement in the Shorty Shea affair at the expense of his own insistence that he only cut him ? Did he commit a sacrilegious prison infringement ? Did he eat the prisoner governor’s Chicken Marquiénné ?

    We’ll no doubt find out sooner or later.

  7. Fred Bloggs says:

    The USA Today News reports :
    Parole commissioners told the 79-year-old Davis to try again in three years.
    “They said he lacks empathy,” Michael Beckman, Davis’ attorney, said after the hearing before two parole commissioners.“The last 14 commissioners of the parole board found Bruce Davis suitable for parole,” as did the last nine experts who found him at a low risk for violence, said Beckman, Davis’ attorney. “For these two commissioners to think they know better is appalling.”

  8. Billy Esquire says:

    It appears everything’s pretty much a game in California now, Fred. Those in control don’t take much seriously, especially rules or laws. If Bruce was truly dangerous, they would probably let him out. But since he’s elderly and obviously not dangerous, they keep him in. Everything good is bad, and everything bad is good…..in California. It’s pretty much everything in reverse.

  9. Fred Bloggs says:

    Well, having now read the transcript of the hearing, I’d have to conclude that Ms. Garland and Ms. Stern went back to Robert Doyle, Booker Welch, Jeffrey Ferguson, Ed Alvord, John Peck, Patricia Casady, Pete Labahn, Tim O’Hara, Cynthia Fritz, John Denvir, Arthur Anderson, James Weilbacher, Debra San Juan, and Neil Chambers and told them that they were a bunch of ding-a-lings for having granted Bruce parole 7 times out of 7 hearings in the last 11 years.

    I’m not going to get into yet another lengthy debate {much as I enjoy them} about the things that we have been discussing for the past few years. There’s plenty of that !

    But one has to seriously question not only the illogicality of Ms. Stern’s and Ms. Garland’s decision in terms of the fact that absolutely nothing has changed in Davis’ behaviour or case since 2010, but also, what they must seriously think of all of those commissioners mentioned above and their deputies. It reminds me a bit of those times when someone has taken over leadership of a political party and they try to erase the recent past and by extension, the architects of that recent past.

    That all said, this was possibly Bruce’s most in-depth and fascinating hearing since his incendiary 1993 one. It was like an interview by one of those dogged journalist/interviewers we have here in England. From that point of view, it was brilliant. In a funky kind of way, they actually have demonstrated how far he’s come and that his rehabilitation is probably truly genuine. Just by some of his references and statements, I can see that Bruce clings tightly to his Lord and sees the best in people. I think he needs to be a little more realistic about the family members of the general victims of the Family. They are not as cute and far sighted as he thinks !

    I get the impression that Bruce wouldn’t have been too perturbed by the decision, but I also think it would have surprised him, if only a little….

  10. BirdieNumNum says:

    Comparisons between the past Davis and Krenwinkel hearings reveal two essentials: it’s all about the Commissioners presiding and what the inmate’s insights or lack thereof are presented. But primarily, it’s all about the commissioners. Dobbs and Pomerantz clearly had their decision made before Krenwinkel’s hearing began.
    Commissioners Garland and Stern asked thorough, probative questions and Davis’ responses were crucial to his denial. Particularly when asked by Comm. Garland “Why are you still in prison?” and Comm. Stern asked how he felt public engagements would impact the victims’ families. Kay Martley (public speaking) and Anthony DiMaria (“still in prison”) hammer Bruce Davis’ responses and the commissioners address these points in their decision.

  11. franz stella says:

    Davis should be released, He’s done the time and he’s being honest about his past.
    Let him and Leslie Van Houten go free, Others with more convictions have been freed in California.

  12. One Arm Don says:

    I have an aquaintence that brutally murdered a very good friend of mine. He has 40 years to hink about it before he ha a parole hearing. I hope the Sum bitch never gets out. There are some things you can’t come back from. The only reason Sreve Grogan was paroled was because he brought them to shorty’s body. Patricia Krenwinkle will not get out. The governor will see to that. There is apart of me that thinks that the only reason the commission grants parole is because they know the Governor will deny it. What Govenor wants the parole of any those guys on their record? I don’t believe all the Helter Skelter bullshit but these people are not victums. The had choices and they made them. I have had my own experience with media and police, lieing and creating hvoc in my family. But that does not mean I was responsibility free. If your family member was one of the true victims, for you, when would be enough time? If Shorty or Gary was my family member I would be at every parole hearing asking them when my family member gets parole.

  13. Fayez Abedaziz says:

    One Arm Don-

    I understand what you’re saying, good points made.
    The thing that bothers a lot of people is how there are different and uneven rulings and paroles to do with prisoners
    so that, some criminal murderers are let out of prison after they had been there for ten, twenty or more, less than those that were denied that freedom out of prisons.

  14. One Arm Don says:

    A flaw in the system in every state in America. America does not treat the charged equally. In my state you will do more time for drug charges than rape. One reason we have so many plea deals and innocent people take these deals because a couple years is much better than if they lose at trial. There are so many flaws in our judicial system. The whole Governor thing is a tremendous flaw in Calli. I would hate to have my life in the hands of someone that is politicly motivated and their future political life is at stake. None of them will ever be paroled. Brain Cancer did not do it. Personally, I have a difficult time with religious jail house conversion and jail house preachers. Not only do I not trust them but parole needs to be focused on responsibility and behavior in prison. In these cases the truth is far from what they testify. They are stuck in a system that does not promote honesty, it promotes kissing ass and saying whatever they think the commission wants to hear. None of them can be honest about what really happened. Everyone of them were tried in the media, before they ever got to court. These guys don’t have a chance. Now, everyone of the participants left, except Mr Watson, have been paroled, some several times, and no Governor has signed onto the parole. I don’t count Mr Grogan because he took an early release plea. I believe that the rest are going to die in Prison, especially with death sentence being converted to life with the possibility of parole.. Fair has nothing to do with any of this. My Dad used to say “The fair comes around once a years and sometimes it sucks. I believe that Mr Davis showed behavior that the concern of him not connecting to the effects of the families. He was more concerned about the effects of prison on him. I was not there, I have not seen the video of the hearing I personally have never done well dealing with the authorities. My personal experience is that our judicial system is more concerned with convictions rather than the truth. It is the world we live in. I won’t be alive when my acquaintance goes to his hearing. But if I was alive and it was happening today, I would go to the parole hearing and ask the system to keep him in prison. He killed a woman, butchered her, hid her in a closet. She was in a the closet when the police questioned him. Caught him on video buying blood cleaning supplies that did not wor.
    There was blood all over the apartment. Then he took her rotting corpse and threw the remains off a cliff. She was found torring with maggots. They could not identify her by looking at her. I don’t want him to ever be in society again. I hope he dies in prison. My friend will never come back. She is gone. Murder is permanent and responsibility, in many cases, needs to be permanent. In these particular cases there is no question of guilt or stupidity.

  15. John says:

    Seeing as the median sentence served in California for murder is less than 16 years, all Manson family members that have behaved in prison should be released. In a just system.
    Manson himself was the least violent and we all knew he’d never see the free life again. It’s not what they did but, who they did it to.

  16. Fred Bloggs says:

    John says:
    Seeing as the median sentence served in California for murder is less than 16 years, all Manson family members that have behaved in prison should be released. In a just system.

    I disagree. Parole is more than just letting someone out for behaving. For starters, what is “behaving” ? It could simply mean not breaking the rules. I think parole has to balance the actual crime, the behaviour of the inmate and their rehabilitation over a lengthy period of time. How much, for example, have they shown that they are no longer the person they were when they committed the crime and how far have they come from the mindset that they housed at the time of the crime ?
    It’s a difficult balancing act and goes beyond time served.

    Manson himself was the least violent and we all knew he’d never see the free life again

    Charles Manson could have put himself in a parolable position if he admitted what he had done and sought to change.
    He did neither.
    Hence, he died in prison.

    It’s not what they did but, who they did it to.

    I don’t fully agree with that. The two people that Davis was convicted of murdering were no-account nobodies.

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