Sara Jane Moore, Now 80, on Her Freedom

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:12:12 PM EST
Tags: Sara Jane Moore (all tags)

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Does anyone remember Sara Jane Moore, the 45 year old frumpy looking woman who took a shot at then President Gerald Ford and missed?

Apparently she is now 80 and was released in 2007 on mandatory parole after serving 32 years in jail. She was on the Today Show this morning. [More...]

Back in those days, before sentencing guidelines, the U.S. had parole and after a certain number of years, you maxed out your sentence and had to be released. For a life sentence, it was 30 years.

From Wikipedia:

A native of Charleston, West Virginia, she was a former nursing school student, Women's Army Corps recruit, and accountant. Moore had married and divorced five times and had four children before she turned to revolutionary politics in 1975.³[4]

Moore's friends said she had a deep fascination and obsession with Patty Hearst.⁵ After Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, her father Randolph Hearst created the organization People in Need (P.I.N.) to feed the poor, in order to answer S.L.A. claims that the elder Hearst was "committing 'crimes' against 'the people.'"⁵ Moore was a bookkeeper for P.I.N. and an FBI informant³[6]⁵ when she attempted to assassinate Ford.

She had a great response to Matt Lauer's question about people who think she should not have been released:

As for those who say she should never have been released, Moore says: “We have a Constitution and we have laws. Regardless of who you are, there were conditions to be met for me to be paroled, and I met those conditions.

“If people object to that, write your congressman and ask that your law be changed.”

She is still being supervised on parole.

Leslie Van Houten comes up for parole for the 19th time this year. She will be 60 and have served 40 years of her state life sentence. There's no mandatory release for her. As I wrote in 2002, I think it's time for her to be freed.

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Sara Jane Moore, Now 80, on Her Freedom | 49 comments (49 topical)

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Did she say why she wanted to kill Ford? (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by Big Tent Democrat on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:13:36 PM EST

: Quotes (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:20:45 PM EST

Quotes
"I do regret I didn't succeed, and allow the winds of change to start. I wish I had killed him. I did it to create chaos."[22][23]
"I didn't want to kill anybody, but there comes a point when the only way you can make a statement is to pick up a gun."[4][1]
"The government had declared war on the left. Nixon's appointment of Ford as vice president and his resignation making Ford president seemed to be a continuing assault on America."[24]
"I know now that I was wrong to try. Thank God I didn't succeed. People kept saying he would have to die before I could be released, and I did not want my release from prison to be dependent on somebody, on something happening to somebody else, so I wanted him to live to be 100."[25]

I never understood (5.00 / 2) (#3)
by Steve M on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:21:06 PM EST

how anyone, let alone multiple people, could want to kill Gerald Ford. One of the most harmless Presidents we've ever had!

I'm (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by Ga6thDem on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:35:18 PM EST

with you on that one.


He may have been personally (5.00 / 1) (#11)
by jondee on Thu May 28, 2009 at 01:21:10 PM EST

harmless, but he also willing assumed the mantle of power of a nation with a longstanding and recent history of attempting to institute change through the barrel of a gun -- when other options were available -- the same way Sara Jane Moore did.


uh, (none / 0) (#27)
by bocajeff on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:21:24 PM EST

ok.


: What was Vietnam? (none / 0) (#39)
by jondee on Thu May 28, 2009 at 04:45:22 PM EST

what was the overthrow of Allende in Chile, and on and on?

Is Ford the only (none / 0) (#7)
by Inspector Gadget on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:46:18 PM EST

appointed President we've ever had?


Well (5.00 / 5) (#8)
by Ga6thDem on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:47:45 PM EST

if you exclude Bush, yes.


: HA! (none / 0) (#9)
by aeguy on Thu May 28, 2009 at 01:15:22 PM EST

Not!!!! harmless (5.00 / 2) (#12)
by TeresaInSnow2 on Thu May 28, 2009 at 01:39:10 PM EST

He pre-emptively pardoned Nixon...very, very harmful to our Democracy. And we're still suffering from it today.

Not that I think he should be shot. But thank Gawd Ford wasn't elected after that.


: Warren Commission (5.00 / 1) (#15)
by jondee on Thu May 28, 2009 at 01:51:32 PM EST

fellow traveler/white washer, also.

: Or I should say (none / 0) (#13)
by TeresaInSnow2 on Thu May 28, 2009 at 01:39:47 PM EST

To Democracy. Of course we exist under a Republic.

: Yep, his pardon of the crook (none / 0) (#17)
by brodie on Thu May 28, 2009 at 02:16:46 PM EST

Nixon -- thereby shortcuiting what should have been a cleansing criminal process which could have revealed a great deal about Watergate and held even the president to account before the law -- was the primary reason I was pulling for Carter in 76.
Of course, in perfect hindsight now, the election of Carter and his very disappointing presidency was what enabled the rise of Reagan and 12 yrs of rightwing rule. So, in that sense, I kinda wish Ford had eeked out a full term, then we could have had a better nominee in 80 to go up against a much less formidable RR.

Harmless? Hah. Not even. (5.00 / 1) (#18)
by oldpro on Thu May 28, 2009 at 02:45:13 PM EST

As a congressman Ford was the Republican hit man re Democratic candidates and nearly all progressive legislation put forward by President Johnson. Keep in mind...Nixon chose him (after Agnew, of course)!

Sheesh...his PR remake is complete, I gather...but not for those of us with a memory. To quote a 1996 post by Conservative Deflator,

"Although moderate compared to the neofascists who dominate the GOP today, Ford had one mission - to pardon Nixon. Those that say the pardon was justified are either blind partisans themselves or don't understand history. Nixon was a deeply criminal man who illegally bombed Cambodia, used the IRS to punish his enemies, cheated on his taxes, etc. He should have died in a federal penitentiary. Under the Geneva conventions, Nixon could have been tried as a war criminal.

Ford vetoed 66 bills in the three years he was in office and was an obstructuonist goon who dithered on the economy and left Jimmay Carter a godawful mess to clean up, as happens so often when a Democrat follows a Republican in the White House. Inflation was out of control and his WIN buttons were a joke. He basically was an ineffectual, incompetent caretaker president. I don't see that he deserves as many accolades as his wife, who has helped countless people recover from substance abuse probems."


Well (5.00 / 1) (#24)
by Steve M on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:08:04 PM EST

I didn't say he should be on Mount Rushmore!


: Well, it is ironic (none / 0) (#26)
by brodie on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:17:37 PM EST

that the most harmless president we've had probably sets the record for most times shot at in separate and unsuccessful assass'n attempts.

oldpro, you're forgetting (5.00 / 1) (#29)
by brodie on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:23:36 PM EST

how Rep Jerry Ford led the drive to impeach CJ Earl Warren in the late 60s. (I think someone above already mentioned his lying efforts -- back wound placement seemed to change over the yrs, conveniently -- on the Warren Omission)

Btw, Nixon supposedly picked Jerry because at the time Ford didn't exactly have a stellar rep in D.C. for having a lot on the ball upstairs. Dick was thinking of Jerry firstly as impeachment insurance, as in Congress would never want to get to the point with me where they would allow knucklehead Jerry to become president!


: Ummm...do you mean Wm. O. Douglas? (5.00 / 1) (#37)
by oldpro on Thu May 28, 2009 at 04:27:47 PM EST

A controversial justice from my state (WA) I think you must be thinking of Douglas. I DO recall that!
The billboards and bumperstickers demanding that we "Impeach Earl Warren!" were the result of the John Birch Society's attempts to tar Warren as a communist/communist sympathizer for his role in Brown v Board of Education. I don't recall Ford's role in that nightmare but it would not surprise me to find he'd been a part of it.
That Ford ended up as what Jimmy Carter called "my best friend" has gone a long way in rehabilitating the Ford image. Carter is one of those forgiving Christians. I'm not.

And of course dismissal of the rule of law (none / 0) (#34)
by MyLeftMind on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:35:23 PM EST

at the highest levels of our government was an international embarrassment and caused many people, especially Democrats, to give up on our electoral process for years.


Yes she has discussed it (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by Jeralyn on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:22:48 PM EST

Today she said:

"This is going to sound a little strange, but I really thought that it would trigger a new revolution. We were saying the country needed to change, the only way it was going to change was a violent revolution. I genuinely thought that this might trigger that new revolution in this country."
It was only later, while spending time in solitary confinement, that the only woman ever to fire a shot at a president said she "had begun to realize that I'd been used."
"I think that I was misled, that I was mistaken. I think I made a serious error," she told Lauer. "I had to learn later that everyone else didn't feel that way."

In the past, she has said she was was "blinded by her radical political views." Also,

* I did it to create chaos."

"I didn't want to kill anybody, but there comes a point when the only way you can make a statement is to pick up a gun."

"The government had declared war on the left. Nixon's appointment of Ford as vice president and his resignation making Ford president seemed to be a continuing assault on America."

I know now that I was wrong to try. Thank God I didn't succeed. People kept saying he would have to die before I could be released, and I did not want my release from prison to be dependent on somebody, on something happening to somebody else, so I wanted him to live to be 100."

That does not make sense (5.00 / 0) (#10)
by nyjets on Thu May 28, 2009 at 01:18:10 PM EST

"Back in those days, before sentencing guidelines, the U.S. had parole and after a certain number of years, you maxed out your sentence and had to be released. For a life sentence, it was 30 years."

So in other words, a life sentence did not mean life. Kind of scary when you think about it. How many murders and violent offenders were put back on the streets because of this contradiction.

"Leslie Van Houten comes up for parole for the 19th time this year. She will be 60 and have served 40 years of her state life sentence. There's no mandatory release for her."

For her crimes, she should never be realized. No matter how 'repentent' she may or may not be, she will never be able to atone for what she did. Her crimes are there is life without parole sentences.

It was a better time (none / 0) (#43)
by MrConservative on Thu May 28, 2009 at 06:25:39 PM EST

People had compassion back then. They don't these days.


: Compassion for murders and violent criminals? (none / 0) (#47)
by nyjets on Thu May 28, 2009 at 06:50:33 PM EST

My compassion are for the victims of crimes. Not for murders.
Unless there are real mitgating circumstances, ie a victim strikes back at an abuser, the violent crimes was an accident, murders are not worthy of compassion.

Are men ever called dumpy? (5.00 / 4) (#19)
by Sweet Sue on Thu May 28, 2009 at 02:50:22 PM EST

I remember Sara Jane Moore very well. Was it really necessary to characterize the forty five year old Moore as "dumpy?"
A man can look like Ken Starr or his doppelganger, Karl Rove(have they ever been in the same room together) and never be called dumpy. But then, we don't tend to describe men by how conventionally handsome they are or are not.

I've read a description of Rove... (5.00 / 1) (#25)
by vml68 on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:11:48 PM EST

as "doughy". I found that quite apt!


uh, (none / 0) (#30)
by bocajeff on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:26:58 PM EST

bill gates is described as "geeky" all the time. Nebish is another word used to describe Woody Allen, Larry David and George Costanza. Chimp to describe George W., "Slick" Willy, etc...

The language is there if you look for it. It doesn't do the same damage since men are the dominant gender in our society and are an easy target.


: Bocajeff... (none / 0) (#33)
by vml68 on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:35:03 PM EST

I was not condoning the use of the word frumpy. I was just replying to the question of whether anyone had heard of Star/Rove referred to as dumpy.

Frumpy, not dumpy....but, you ruined my plans. (none / 0) (#20)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Thu May 28, 2009 at 02:55:42 PM EST

I was going to find the next Sotomayor thread and refer to her, appropriately, as "frumpy" and see if that would be OK.

Eh, I'll probably still do it...


Lol (none / 0) (#21)
by Sweet Sue on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:05:24 PM EST

Very funny.


: My bet is that Jeralyn wanted to express (5.00 / 1) (#31)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:29:29 PM EST

that SJM looked like the mom next door, and not some wild-eyed assassin, but clearly her choice of words was unfortunate.

Really Jeralyn, frumpy? (5.00 / 1) (#28)
by MyLeftMind on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:21:44 PM EST

Sheesh. Look at her neck in the 45yo picture. She probably had a thyroid problem. Lots of women suffer from depression, weight gain and sleep problems caused by hypothyroidism. I have my own theories about nuclear testing and it's health effects on that generation of women, but if she had that particular untreated medical problem, it likely affected both her thinking and her body shape.

Frumpy. Yes. A good (5.00 / 1) (#38)
by oldpro on Thu May 28, 2009 at 04:36:19 PM EST

description, Jeralyn.

It just means unfashionable...dowdy...and it's apt.

Hmmm, frumpy. Looks (5.00 / 2) (#42)
by TeresaInSnow2 on Thu May 28, 2009 at 05:28:51 PM EST

are more than deceiving. Ted Bundy looked like a cuddly TEDdy Bear, didn't he? Such a friendly smile....

Not saying her crime was as bad. Just saying that looks have no bearing whatsoever on potential criminal activity.

I only remember Squeaky Fromme (none / 0) (#6)
by Inspector Gadget on Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:45:26 PM EST

Never heard of Sara Jane Moore. I'll go out to the NBC website to see the interview. She sure looks harmless, though, doesn't she?

for the same reason (none / 0) (#22)
by Bemused on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:05:59 PM EST

people want sirhan sirhan released. It's just murder after all.

Clarence Thomas, too! (none / 0) (#23)
by Sweet Sue on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:07:34 PM EST

Now Antonin Scalia-that guy is dumpy and frumpy.

I have sympathy for the LB family, (none / 0) (#32)
by brodie on Thu May 28, 2009 at 03:31:39 PM EST

but find myself also with feeling for LVH. 40 yrs behind bars (2/3 of her life) for crimes (undoubtedly cruel and brutal) committed when she was just out of her teens, from a social environment featuring a small isolated cult led by a wild-eyed madman where the cultists were stoned most of the time.

I say if she's done the time, rehabbed and educated herself, lived behind bars by the rules, and doesnt represent a threat to society, then we should honor and encourage the integrity of the parole system and grant the parole. "True justice" just cannot be achieved in a murder case, even if she's compelled to live out the rest of her life in prison.

Agree completely (none / 0) (#36)
by otherlisa on Thu May 28, 2009 at 04:15:42 PM EST

We used to have the sense that the prison system was to rehabilitate as well as punish. I am not a Christian but isn't redemption a large part of the package?


For some crimes it does not matter (none / 0) (#41)
by nyjets on Thu May 28, 2009 at 05:07:16 PM EST

There are some crimes which are so heinous, it does not matter how repentent the criminal/ murder happens to be.
She will never be able to atone or make up for what she did. Now she must answer for her crimes which should involve her dieing in prison.


Why not? (none / 0) (#44)
by MrConservative on Thu May 28, 2009 at 06:30:22 PM EST

This isn't even a logical argument. This was 40 years ago, and she is an elderly woman now. I don't think she should die in prison and I think you're morally disgusting for believing that.


: It does not matter (none / 0) (#48)
by nyjets on Thu May 28, 2009 at 06:55:59 PM EST

The fact that she is an elderly woman does not change one fact of the case. She is a murder who commited several heinous murders. THese facts are unchangeable.
There is nothing morally disgusting for wanting a murder to die in prison. It would be morally disgusting to want her tortured. It would be morally disgusting to deny her food and a clean bed. That would be 100 percent wrong and I am completly against that.
There is nothing wrong, however, in wanting a murder to die in prison.
No matter how you look at it, she has fared much better than her victims and there families.

She didn't commit a murder (none / 0) (#45)
by MrConservative on Thu May 28, 2009 at 06:32:19 PM EST

Being cruel for the sake of being cruel does no respect to victims. Cruelty spits on their grave. You are insulting victims by believing as you do.

We are not better off without her. We are better off without murder. You fail to see the difference, because deep down, you don't care about victims, and only believe in cruelty for your own selfish reasons, because you enjoy it. And that is sickening.


: You are arguing (5.00 / 1) (#57)
by Steve M on Thu May 28, 2009 at 09:26:09 PM EST

with someone who agrees with you, FYI...

After this many years (none / 0) (#40)
by catmandu on Thu May 28, 2009 at 04:52:04 PM EST

I hope she realizes that violence and murder is not a solution to whatever her problem was.

I'd want a thorough psych eval (none / 0) (#46)
by Fabian on Thu May 28, 2009 at 06:35:15 PM EST

on her before I'd even think about releasing her.

WSWS on Gerald Ford (none / 0) (#58)
by Andreas on Fri May 29, 2009 at 01:18:28 AM EST

Ford's pardoning of Nixon was a deeply undemocratic and reactionary act. In its fashion, it foreshadowed the outcome of the following decade's Iran-Contra scandal, in which Ronald Reagan and his officials got off with a slap on the wrist for their illegal activities.
Moreover, it encouraged and facilitated the later operations of the political underworld around George W. Bush (including former Ford aides Cheney and Rumsfeld). These include the theft of the 2000 election, an assault on democratic rights that goes far beyond that of the Nixon administration, and the launching of an illegal invasion of Iraq, for which, if the establishment has its way, no one is to be held accountable.

Former US President Gerald Ford dies
Pardoned Nixon for Watergate crimes
By David Walsh, 28 December 2006

So if your against the death penalty (none / 0) (#59)
by Slado on Fri May 29, 2009 at 08:22:05 AM EST

as I am, then how can you be for life sentences that have no meaning?

Murder is the ultimate crime. So it deserves the maximum punishment. I don't believe in the death penalty so to me the ultimate punishment is life in prison, no parole.

The line must be drawn somewhere. Not all murderers should get life with no parole but when they do it should mean something. Our system is set up to give someone many appeals and many chances. This women appears to me to have gotten all of them. She should stay in prison.

The victim never gets a second chance. No matter what we do "the dead are still dead". Having compasion for the murderer is appropriate as we should have compasion for all human beings. However punishment can be administered with compasion and in some cases the ultimate punsihment is well deserved.

Van Houten... (none / 0) (#60)
by Dadler on Fri May 29, 2009 at 09:15:47 AM EST

...will never be released. Whatever side you are on, parole or continued imprisionment, it is naive to think the American public would allow it. Not a chance in hell. You couldn't waste your time on a more pointless discussion. She will never see the outside of a prision. Just the way it is and will be.