3. The defense had to prove that Patty was not a willing participant in her crimes
The trial for the Hibernia bank robbery began in January of 1976. The judge was personal acquaintances with the prosecution, and he refused to allow expert witnesses whose testimony might acquit Patty. He also used Patty’s behavior for the year after the bank robbery to serve as a testimony of her state of mind during the robbery. One expert witness that the judge did allow to the stand was a forensic psychologist named Harry Kozol; Kozol concluded that Hearst was “a rebel in search of a cause” and was fully liable for her participation in the bank robbery.
When Patty went to the witness stand, she appeared lethargic, allegedly because she had been given drugs. She testified that she had been raped and also testified against Emily Harris. In retaliation, Emily produced a trinket that one of the SLA members who had assaulted her had given Patty, claiming that they had been in a romantic relationship. In the court’s closing statement, the judge did not even make mention of the fact that Patty had been kidnapped. He declared that she had been willfully complicit in the crimes and was not acting under coercion at all. Her defense attorney said, in his closing statement, “But simple application of the rules, I think, will yield one decent result, and, that is, there is not anything close to proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Patty Hearst wanted to be a bank robber. What you know, and you know in your hearts to be true is beyond dispute. There was talk about her dying, and she wanted to survive.”
