At 9 o’clock on the evening, February 4th, 1974, a knock on door at 2603 Benvenue Street, Berkeley, California, signaled the arrival of a group of 5 men and women armed with guns who come into the 4th apartment where lived American media heiress Patricia Hearst. The group, members of the radical group Symbionese Liberation Army, led by black nationalist Donald DeFreeze, kidnapped the 19-year-old after beating up her fiancé, threw her in a car and drove away. Only 2 months later, on April 15th, the granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was seen participating in a bank robbery at Hibernia Bank, San Francisco, with the SLA, under a new pseudonym: Tania. The following events which shocked and confused a 1970s America already …show more content…
The trial started on January 15, 1976, and took place in San Francisco, California. Oliver Jesse Carter was the judge in place at the time and refused at first expert witnesses testimonies that would help the defence of Stockholm syndrome on the basis that the tapes recorded of Patty after her arrest proved her guilt and willingness to participate. The jury did not buy into her defence which was that she was under “coercive persuasion” and affected by Stockholm syndrome at the time of the crimes, believing the prosecution accusations and claims that Patty was simply “a rebel in search of a cause.” Patty Hearst was defended by defence attorney F. Lee Bailey while the prosecution was lead by U.S attorney James Browning. She was sentenced to 7 years, but served only two at Pleasanton prison before being pardoned by president Jimmy Carter in 1979 on the behalf that she was more of a victim than a criminal. The initial claims of Stockholm syndrome were eventually backed up by more evidence showing that at the times of the crimes, Patty was convinced she would die if she did not comply to the orders of