Handout / Reuters

Bruce Davis is shown in undated photo from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

LOS ANGELES -- California Governor Jerry Brown denied parole on Friday for a member of the Manson family who was sentenced to life in prison for two 1969 murders carried out with other members of the cult, saying that he remained a danger to the public.

In rejecting parole for Bruce Davis, 70, Brown reversed the decision of a California parole board that found him eligible for release after his 27th parole hearing last October.

"As our Supreme Court has acknowledged, in rare circumstances, a murder is so heinous that it provides evidence of current dangerousness by itself," the governor wrote in his six-page decision. "This is such a case."

Brown commended Davis for his efforts to improve himself during his four decades behind bars, including earning degrees in religion and philosophy, leading counseling groups and teaching Bible classes.

But he said the convicted killer had continued to minimize the extent of his involvement and leadership in the Manson Family, a collection of runaways and outcasts brought together by ex-convict Charles Manson whose spree of killings horrified the nation in the late 1960s.

"Until he can acknowledge and explain why he actively championed the Family's interests, and shed more light on the nature of his involvement, I am not prepared to release him," the governor wrote.

Davis has been serving a life sentence in a California state prison since his 1972 conviction for the murders of music teacher Gary Hinman, who was stabbed to death in July 1969, and stunt man Donald "Shorty" Shea, who was killed the following month. He was arrested in 1970 after nearly a year on the run.

'Helter Skelter'
Manson became one of the 20th century's most infamous criminals in the summer of 1969, when he directed his mostly young, female followers to murder seven people in what prosecutors said was part of a plan to incite a race war between whites and blacks.

Among the victims was actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski. She was stabbed 16 times by members of the cult in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, 1969.

Four other people were also stabbed or shot to death at Tate's home that night by the Manson followers, who scrawled the word "Pig" in blood on the front door before leaving.

The following night, Manson's group stabbed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca to death, using their blood to write "Rise," "Death to Pigs" and "Healter Skelter" - a misspelled reference to the Beatles song "Helter Skelter" - on the walls and refrigerator door.

Davis did not take part in those murders.

Manson was originally sentenced to death but was spared execution after the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972.

Now 78, he is serving a life sentence at Corcoran State Prison for the seven Tate-LaBianca killings and the murder of Hinman. He has been repeatedly denied parole.

Steve Grogan, a Manson family member who was convicted of murdering Shea at Manson's direction, was released in the mid-1980s.

Davis was previously granted parole in 2010 but remained incarcerated after that decision was reversed by then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Days after California’s governor vetoed a bill that would have let local authorities ignore federal requests to hold undocumented immigrants for possible deportation, the Los Angeles police chief has decided he won’t comply with the requests in low-level cases.

Police Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday that he had to craft a program that would serve his community.

"It strikes me as somebody who runs a police department that is 45 percent Hispanic and polices a city that is at least that, that we need to build trust in these communities and we need to build cooperation or we won't be prepared," the Los Angeles Times quoted Beck as saying.

Out of 105,000 annual arrests, the Los Angeles police get about 3,400 requests, known as detainers or holds, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, The Los Angeles Daily News reported.  The holds are part of the Secure Communities program, in which the FBI shares fingerprints of those arrested with federal immigration authorities, who determine if the persons are legally in the U.S. or if they can be deported due to a criminal conviction.

Calif. governor vetoes bill that allowed towns to release undocumented immigrants

Immigration advocates say the holds cast a wide dragnet that has ensnared even those who had committed minor crimes or no offenses at all. But ICE has said the program was instrumental in helping enforce immigration laws and in getting violent offenders off the streets.

Nick Ut / AP file

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck: "Community trust is extremely important. It's my intent that we gain that trust back."

“The LAPD is proposing to no longer grant an ICE detainer request without first reviewing the seriousness of the offense for which the person is being held as well as their prior arrest history and gang involvement,” according to an LAPD statement.

The department was developing a list of criminal offenses, such as public nuisance and low-grade misdemeanors, that in its view don’t meet the program's intended purpose.

Under the LAPD’s new proposal, those arrested for low-grade misdemeanors won’t be held for ICE unless the person had a prior felony arrest or was a documented gang member. The person also won't be held without additional information from ICE. The police will still honor detention requests on felony and high-grade misdemeanor arrests.

About 400 ICE requests annually could be ignored under the new policy, Beck said, adding that City Attorney Carmen Trutanich had informed him that police could legally refuse to honor ICE detainer requests, according to local media reports.

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Beck said he believes in some cases, the detentions have unnecessarily split up families, Reuters reported.

"Community trust is extremely important," he said. "It's my intent that we gain that trust back."

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Late Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the Trust Act, controversial legislation similar to what Beck has opted to do. Beck said his new rules, which he hopes to implement by Jan. 1, were in the works before the governor’s veto, the Daily News reported.

In his veto message, Brown said he could not sign the bill because under it, “local officers would be prohibited from complying with an immigration detainer unless the person arrested was charged with, or has been previously convicted of, a serious or violent felony.

“Unfortunately, the list of offenses codified in the bill is fatally flawed because it omits many serious crimes,” he said, adding that he would work with lawmakers to improve the legislation.

Several counties and cities have enacted ordinances that limit police cooperation with federal immigration authorities, The New York Times has reported.

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ICE says it prioritizes the deportation of those who present the most significant threats to public safety, and that it has deported more than 147,400 convicted criminal undocumented immigrants, including more than 54,200 individuals convicted of violent offenses such as murder, rape and the sexual abuse of children, under the program.

“Over the past three and half years, ICE has been dedicated to implementing smart, effective reforms to the immigration system that allow it to focus its resources on criminals, recent border crossers and repeat immigration law violators,” ICE Deputy Press Secretary Gillian Christensen said Friday in a statement to NBC News. “The federal government alone sets these priorities and places detainers on individuals arrested on criminal charges to ensure that dangerous criminal aliens and other priority individuals are not released from prisons and jails into our communities.”

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Updated at 4:55 p.m. ET: California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday asked state employees to work a four-day, 38-hour week as part of a package of massive spending cuts needed to help the state close an unexpected $15.7 billion budget deficit.

In addition to the unusual four-day workweek — part of a mandated reduction in salaries and benefits to state workers of 5 percent — Brown's proposed budget, which would take effect July 1, also would slash $1.2 billion from the state's Medi-Cal program and more than $2 billion from education.

Brown also urged voters to pass an initiative to raise taxes that he is supporting on the November ballot.

"I am a buoyant optimist," Brown said at a news conference, "but this is the best I can do" about the deficit, which is about $7 billion greater than Brown predicted when he proposed his initial budget in January.

He blamed tax collections that hadn't come in as high as had been expected and billions of dollars in state cuts that have been blocked by lawsuits and federal requirements.

"The budget has lots of funds ... and restraints and rules," Brown said. "It's a pretzel palace of incredible complexity, and that's why it isn't straightforward how you balance the budget."

The tax plan Brown is pushing in November would raise the state sales tax to 7.5 percent from 7.25 percent, which is projected to increase sales tax receipts by about 3.5 percent.

The plan would also raise the income tax on residents earning between $250,000 and $300,000 a year to 10.3 percent from 9.71 percent and to 11.3 percent on people with annual incomes between $350,000 and $500,000 — a 17.7 percent increase over the current rate.

Read the full revised budget (.pdf)

Brown said that if voters don't approve the new taxes in November, cuts to social services, state workers' pay and other spending would be larger. Under that scenario, he said, cuts to education would total $6 billion, and services for people with developmental disabilities would be reduced by $50 million.

"I can't convey how difficult it is to make the cuts we are facing," Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, said in an interview with NBC station KCRA of Sacramento, adding that it was inevitable that California would have to raise taxes.

"This is a very, very serious situation that can't be solved simply by cuts," Dickinson said. "We've cut the state general fund budget by about 20 percent over the last three years, so it's not a matter of continuing to cut. We're beyond being into the bone at this point."

Jon Streeter, president of the State Bar of California, said the proposals would gut the state's court system.

"The situation is dire and getting worse," Streeter said. "The entire civil justice system as we know it is in peril."

It isn't clear how the proposed cuts would affect municipalities and social services. A spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said city officials were still reviewing the proposals Monday afternoon.

On Saturday, Brown released a YouTube video criticizing previous legislative fixes as "gimmicky."

"We're still recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s," Brown said in the video. "Tax receipts are coming in lower than expected, and the federal government and the courts have blocked us from making billions in necessary budget reductions. This means that we will have to go much further and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year."

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