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Today, there seem to be that many historical events that take place today are court trials. The trial of Patricia Campbell Hearst can be the pioneer of this. For Hearst herself, I? m sure this was all a nightmare. Not only was she kidnapped, brainwashed, and held hostage, but in the end she was also accused of committing a crime, a crime that many people have very different opinions about. The day this nightmare began was on February 4, 1974.
Members of a group that called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army, also known as the SLA-which had been what you may say as? famous? for the assassination of Marcus Foster, who of that time was the first African American superintendent of schools in the troubled area of Oakland California. (3) These SLA fighters knocked on the door of Patricia Hearst? s Berkeley apartment just after 9 p. m... (2) They gagged and blindfolded her and put her on the floor of a waiting car, driving her to a safe house in San Francisco. There, they kept at the time only 19 year old Patricia in a small, disgusting closet.
The group kidnapped Patricia in hope that they could maybe extort money from her wealthy father, Randolph. A Hearst, and free the SLA members who were accused and being held for the assassination of Foster. For about 2 years Patricia Hearst stayed in the supposed? safe house?
in a closet and was exposed to extreme physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. (2) This abuse had taken quite a toll on Hearst. On April 15, 1974, Patricia was about to take part in a crime that would change her life more than it already was. On this day, she along with the rest of the Symbionese Liberation Army, took a weapon and went on to rob the Hibernia Bank. Aside from the fact that she was taking part in a bank robbery nonetheless, it was the bank that her father had owned. Patricia, now known to her fellow SLA members as? Tania? , was shown on the bank?
s surveillance cameras holding up the bank with the other members of the group. This was first of many criminal acts that Patricia had become involved with the SLA in. On September 1975, the dreaded moment had come for Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army members. The remaining SLA members, along with Patricia, were arrested and taken in by the FBI. They were under arrest for the robbery of the Hibernia Bank that took place in April 1975. The FBI, after having been a laughingstock of the radical left, and much of the press and public, had won out in the end. (1) When put on trial and asked why she committed the crimes with the Symbionese Liberation Army, Patricia Hearst explained that her reasons for committing the crimes along with the SLA were because she was brainwashed from all of the abuse that she had been exposed to.
That in order for her to live, she would have to do what they said. (1) Patricia Campbell Hearst had to go on trial not only for the bank robbery, but also for the holding up of Mel? s Sporting Goods store. In this, she faced fifteen and one half years or probation. Many letters were written to Patricia while she was in prison- some good, some bad. There was even a? Free Patty Hearst?
writing campaign. On January 29, 1979, Hearst was given a Conditional Commutation of Sentence? , which was signed by president of that time Jimmy Carter. Patricia Hearst was released on February 1, 1979, almost five years from the day of her kidnapping, having spent almost two years in prison. When asked where she was going to go where she wouldn? t be known as Patricia Hearst, she immediately responded, ?
I don? t see anything wrong with being Patricia Hearst? . (1) The question on may Americans minds at the time of the Patricia Campbell Hearst trial was? Was Justice Done? ? ? Was Patty Hearst really kidnapped, or was this just a planned stunt to seek revenge on her wealthy family? ? I feel, from the research I have done, like reading her book, that Patricia Hearst did her time for a crime that I feel she did not want to take place in, but which she had to in order to survive the awful ordeals which she was put through during her being kept hostage by the SLA. I think that in order to know the truth, we must be put in the position that Hearst was.
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Research essay sample on Patricia Campbell Hearst Symbionese Liberation Army Sla
