From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for April 22, 1971:

A judge in Los Angeles formally sentenced Charles Manson and three of his followers to die in the gas chamber for the Sharon Tate murders. There had not been an execution in the U.S. since 1967 as state courts were waiting on a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the death penalty was constitutional. If the Court affirmed the death penalty, as many contemporary legal observers believed would happen, Manson and the three women would be put to death along with the more than 90 persons awaiting execution on San Quentin’s Death Row. [However, a decision the following year by the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the death penalty in that state, and the sentences were automatically reduced to life in prison.]