of death, I went beyond this, asking each if he could conceive of circumstances wherein he would be willing to vote such a verdict against (1) a young person; (2) a female defendant; or (3) a particular defendant even though the evidence showed that he himself did not do any actual killing. Obviously I wanted to eliminate anyone who answered any of these questions negatively.
Manson and the girls caused no disruptions during jury selection. In chambers during the individual voir dire, however, Manson would often stare at Judge Older for literally hours. I could only surmise that he had developed his incredible concentration while in prison. Older totally ignored him.
One day Manson tried it with me. I stared right back, holding his gaze until his hands started shaking. During the recess, I slid my chair over next to his and asked, “What are you trembling about, Charlie? Are you afraid of me?”
“Bugliosi,” he said, “you think I’m bad and I’m not.”
“I don’t think you’re all bad, Charlie. For instance, I understand you love animals.”
“Then you know I wouldn’t hurt anyone,” he said.
“Hitler loved animals too, Charlie. He had a dog named Blondie, and from what I’ve read, Adolf was very kind to Blondie.”
Usually a prosecutor and a defendant won’t exchange two words during an entire trial. But Manson was no ordinary defendant. And he loved to rap. In this, the first of many strange, often highly revealing conversations we had, Manson asked me why I thought he was behind these murders. “Because both Linda and Sadie told me you were,” I replied. “Now, Sadie doesn’t like me, Charlie, and she thinks you’re Jesus Christ. So why would she tell me this if it wasn’t true?”
“Sadie’s just a stupid little bitch,” Manson said. “You know, I only made love to her two or three times. After she had her baby and lost her shape, I couldn’t have cared less about her. That’s why she told that story, to get attention. I would never personally harm anyone.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Charlie, because I won’t buy it! What about Lotsapoppa? You put a bullet in his stomach.”
“Well, yeah, I shot that guy,” Manson admitted. “He was going to come up to Spahn Ranch and get all of us. That was kinda in self-defense.”
Manson was enough of a jailhouse lawyer to know that I couldn’t use anything he told me unless I’d first informed him of his constitutional rights. Yet this, and many subsequent admissions, surprised me. There was a strange sort of honesty about him. It was devious, it was never direct, but it was there. Whenever I pinned him down, he might evade, but not once in this, or the numerous other conversations we had, did he flatly deny that he had ordered the murders.
An innocent man protests his innocence. Instead, Manson played word games. If he took the stand and did this, I felt sure the jury would see through him.
Would Manson take the stand? The general consensus was that Manson’s prodigious ego, plus the opportunity to use the witness stand as a forum to expound his philosophy before the world press, would impel him to testify. But—though I had already put in many hours preparing my cross-examination—no one but Manson really knew what he would do.
Toward the end of the recess, I told him, “I’ve enjoyed talking to you, Charlie, but it would be much more interesting if we did it with you on the stand. I have lots and lots of things I’m curious about.”
“For instance?”
“For instance,” I replied, “where in the world—Terminal Island, Haight-Ashbury, Spahn Ranch—did you get the crazy idea that other people don’t like to live?”
He didn’t answer. Then he began to smile. He’d been challenged. And knew it. Whether he’d decide to accept the challenge remained to be seen.
Though silent in court, Manson remained active behind the scenes.
On June 24, Patricia Krenwinkel interrupted Fitzgerald’s voir dire to ask that he be relieved as her attorney. “I have talked with him about the way I wish this to be handled right now, and he doesn’t do as I ask,” she told the Court. “He is to be my voice, which he is not…” Older denied her request.
Later the defense attorneys had a meeting with their clients. Fitzgerald, who had given up his Public Defender’s job to represent Krenwinkel, emerged with tears in his eyes. I felt very badly about this and, putting my arm around his shoulder, told him, “Paul, don’t let it get you down. She’ll probably keep you. And if she doesn’t, so what? They’re just a bunch of murderers.”
“They’re savages, ingrates,” Fitzgerald said bitterly. “Their only allegiance is to Manson.”
Fitzgerald didn’t tell me what had occurred during the meeting, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Directly, or through the girls, Manson had probably told the attorneys: Do it my way or you’re off the case. Fitzgerald and Reiner told Los Angeles
When, the following day, Reiner disobeyed this order and continued his voir dire, Leslie Van Houten tried to fire him, repeating almost verbatim the words Krenwinkel had used. Older denied her request also.
What Reiner was going through could be gleaned from some of his questions. For example, he asked one prospective juror: “Even if it appears that Leslie Van Houten desired to stand or fall with the other defendants, could you nevertheless acquit her if the evidence against her was insufficient?”
On July 14 both the prosecution and the defense agreed to accept the jury. The twelve were then sworn. The jury consisted of seven men and five women, ranging in age from twenty-five to seventy- three, in occupation from an electronics technician to a mortician.[64]
It was very much a mixed jury, neither side getting exactly what it wanted.
Almost automatically, the defense will challenge anyone connected with law enforcement. Yet Alva Dawson, the oldest member of the jury, had worked sixteen years as a deputy sheriff with LASO, while Walter Vitzelio had been a plant security guard for twenty years, and had a brother who was a deputy sheriff.
On the other hand, Herman Tubick, the mortician, and Mrs. Jean Roseland, a secretary with TWA, each had two daughters in approximately the same age group as the three female defendants.
Studying the jurors’ faces as they were sworn, I felt that most appeared pleased to have been selected. After all, they had been chosen to serve on one of the most famous trials of all time.
Older was quick to bring them back to earth. He instructed them that when they came to court the following morning they should bring their suitcases, clothing, and personal items, as from that point on they would be sequestered.
There remained the selection of the alternate jurors. Because of the anticipated length of the trial, Older decided to pick six, an unusually large number. Again we went through the whole voir dire.
Only this time it was without Ira Reiner. On July 17, Leslie Van Houten formally requested that Reiner be relieved as her attorney and Ronald Hughes appointed instead.
After questioning Hughes, Manson, and Van Houten on the possibility of a conflict of interest, Judge Older granted the substitution. Reiner was out, receiving not even so much as a thank-you for the eight months he had devoted to the case. Manson’s former attorney, the “hippie lawyer” Ronald Hughes, with his Santa Claus beard and Walter Slezak suits, became Leslie Van Houten’s attorney of record.
Ira Reiner had been fired for one reason, and one reason only. He had tried to represent his client to the best of his ability. And he had properly decided that his client was not Charles Manson but Leslie Van Houten.
There was a slight but perceptible smile on Manson’s face. With good reason. He had succeeded in forming a united defense team. Although Fitzgerald remained its nominal head, it was obvious who was calling the shots.
On July 21 the six alternates were sworn, and they too were sequestered.[65] Jury selection had taken five weeks, during which 205 people had been examined and nearly 4,500 pages of transcript accumulated.
It had been a rough five weeks. Older and I had clashed on several occasions, Reiner and Older even
