Editing Charles Manson (section)

=== Conviction and penalty phase ===
On January 25, 1971, the jury returned guilty verdicts against the four defendants on each of the twenty-seven separate counts against them.<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|411–419}} Not far into the trial's [[bifurcation (law)|penalty phase]], the jurors saw the defense that Manson—in the prosecution's view—had planned to present.<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|455}}  Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten testified the murders had been conceived as "copycat" versions of the Hinman murder, for which Atkins now took credit. The killings, they said, were intended to draw suspicion away from Bobby Beausoleil by resembling the crime for which he had been jailed. This plan had supposedly been the work of, and carried out under the guidance of, not Manson, but someone allegedly in love with Beausoleil—[[Linda Kasabian]].<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|424–433}} Among the narrative's weak points was the inability of Atkins to explain why, as she was maintaining, she had written "political piggy" at the Hinman house in the first place.<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|424–433, 450–457}}

Midway through the penalty phase, Manson shaved his head and trimmed his beard to a fork; he told the press, "I am the Devil, and the Devil always has a bald head."<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|439}} In what the prosecution regarded as belated recognition on their part that imitation of Manson only proved his domination, the female defendants refrained from shaving their heads until the jurors retired to weigh the state's request for the death penalty.<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|439, 455}} The effort to exonerate Manson via the "copycat" scenario failed. On March 29, 1971, the jury returned verdicts of death against all four defendants on all counts.<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|450–457}} On April 19, 1971, Judge Older sentenced the four to death.<ref name="bugliosi" />{{Rp|458–459}}