Word: plea
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Patty Hearst was telling the truth? A preliminary determination will be made by Federal Judge Oliver J. Carter, who must decide-perhaps as early as this week-whether or not Patty is a safe risk to be released on $1.5 million bail. When the affidavit supporting Patty's plea for bail was presented in court, the prosecution gained the right to call her to the stand to defend her statements. To determine if Patty is capable of testifying, Judge Carter appointed four experts to examine the celebrated prisoner: Psychiatrists Seymour Pollack of the University of Southern California, Donald...
...defense. What is more, Thomas Dean Matthews, 19, whom Patty and her companions are charged with kidnaping and holding for nearly twelve hours while on a robbery spree in May 1974, has testified that she talked very clearly and proudly about her escapades. Even if argued successfully, a plea of insanity carries a special risk: Patty might be confined to a mental institution until she was judged fit to return to society...
...INSANITY. This is exceedingly difficult to prove to skeptical juries: it usually seems much too convenient a dodge. But Patty's lawyers might try to argue that she was "brainwashed" into going along with the S.L.A. (see following story). Justice Department sources speak derisively of a possible brainwashing plea as the Manchurian Candidate defense, recalling the 1959 thriller. Federal investigators are confident that they have plenty of evidence to establish that Patty Hearst was acting...
...coercive practices described in Patty Hearst's affidavit, if they actually occurred, could have changed her personality so completely that she would have willingly joined the S.L.A. and taken part in its violent crimes. Technically, Patty's main defense may be mental incapacity or coercion, but the plea would be closely akin to brainwashing...
...intellectuals-among them Actor Yves Montand and Leftist Author Régis Debray-flew to Madrid to protest the sentences. They were quickly expelled. Official notes of protest were issued by the European Economic Community and United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. Even Pope Paul VI issued a personal plea for clemency...