United States of America, Plaintiff, v. Patricia Campbell Hearst, Defendant. (1978)During the night of February 4, 1974, petitioner was kidnapped at gunpoint from her Berkeley, California apartment. Two months later, following the repeated efforts of her parents to ransom her, she announced in a taped message that she had repudiated her former lifestyle, and was determined to “stay and fight” beside her captors, the Symbionese Liberation Army (“SLA”). Shortly thereafter, on April 15, 1974, petitioner, wielding a sawed-off carbine, took part in an armed robbery of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco, in which three bystanders were wounded. This dramatic event was followed by a shoplifting incident in Los Angeles, at which petitioner, covering the escape of her SLA companions, riddled a sporting goods store with numerous rounds from an automatic weapon. In May, the State of California filed nineteen criminal charges against the defendant, including assault with intent to commit murder, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, and kidnapping.
Petitioner's defense was straightforward: She alleged that she did not intend to participate in the bank robbery but did so only under the threat of bodily harm. Therefore, the question of whether or not she had the requisite intent to commit the crime became the sole issue of fact to be tried.
In all, the jury listened to testimony from seventy-five witnesses and considered one hundred eighty-six exhibits. Within forty-eight hours after being charged, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Simply stated, the jury apparently believed that Ms. Hearst had participated freely in the robbery and did not believe the coercion theory presented by her defense.