Word: duress
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...charge to the jury, he declared that the Government had to prove-beyond a reasonable doubt-that Patty had intentionally taken part in the bank robbery. "You are free to accept or reject the defendant's own account of her experience with her captors," Carter said. "Duress or coercion may provide a legal excuse for the crime charged against her. But a compulsion must be present and immediate . . . a well-founded fear of death or bodily injury with no possible escape from the compulsion...
...going to be turning the criminal courtroom into a psychiatrist's couch." Georgetown University Law Professor Samuel Dash, the majority counsel for the Senate Watergate hearings, believes brainwashing falls "somewhere in-between" the two traditional legal defenses for felonies-inability to determine right from wrong and extreme duress-and does not quite qualify for acquittal under either of them...
Prosecutors are expected to argue that Patty willingly took part in the bank job, a contention she herself supported in a taped message after the raid. Bailey has already said that he will try to prove that Patty was under duress. But his opponent remains confident. "Sure there's pressure in this case," says Browning. "But U.S. Attorneys can't really make it or break it on any one case, unless they really screw it up. And that's not going to happen...
...DURESS. The defense could plead that Patty had acted under unusual duress or coercion. But to make this claim stand up, the defense would have to show that she never had an opportunity to escape. The prosecution has evidence that she passed up at least one good chance. On May 16, 1974, authorities maintain, Patty took part in a bizarre shoplifting incident at a Los Angeles sporting-goods store. When William Harris, one of her companions in arms, was detected stealing a pair of 490 socks, Patty was seen outside alone in the parked car. She is charged with spraying...
...charges, pointing out that it had only 38 servicemen in Kenya and no combat troops whatever on the two vessels that were making routine calls at Mombasa. In the House of Commons, Callaghan declared firmly that he would be willling to go to Kampala for discussions but not under duress. "It is utterly wrong," he said, "that a man's life should be bartered against political conditions...