Introduction
In the United States Criminal Courts, the government bears the burden of proving the cases it prosecutes, beyond a reasonable doubt (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, n.d.-a). This standard requires that a reasonable person would see the evidence as so strong that there is no reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime (para. 4). These protections are rooted in the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (Library of Congress, n.d., para. 4).
The Office of the United States Attorney, a division of the Department of Justice prosecutes violations of federal law, and criminal proceedings typically follow a six-step process from investigation to appeal (U.S. Department of Justice, n.d.). The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure offer defendants three operative choices when entering a plea during the arraignment phase of the criminal process. Under Rule 11(a), a defendant must plead guilty, not guilty, or nolo contendere with leave of the Court during the arraignment phase of the criminal proceedings (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, n.d.-b).
Crime Convictions by the Numbers
Statistically, 90% of federal criminal prosecutions result in a guilty plea, leaving 10 percent for progression through the trial phase of proceedings (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, n.d.-c). A guilty plea forgoes the trial phases of the criminal proceedings—nevertheless, the remaining 10% of cases seem to progress through the trial stages. Usually, in criminal cases that progress to the trial stage, some offer an affirmative theory of defense.
Affirmative defenses surround the introduction of evidence which marginalizes criminal liability, “even if it is proven that the defendant committed the alleged acts” (Legal Information Institute, n.d.-a). Defenses that fall under this classification include self-defense, entrapment, insanity, necessity, and respondeat superior (para. 2).
Of particular interest to forensic psychologists is the insanity defense, which asserts that one cannot be held responsible for one’s actions due to a defect or mental illness (Legal Information Institute, n.d.-b).
This type of defense is considered “affirmative” because it seeks to eliminate criminal culpability by examining the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the offense to determine if they met the requisite mens rea, or guilty mind. While closely related and sometimes confused, competency refers to a defendant’s mental capacity at the time of trial, whereas insanity focuses on their mental state at the time of the offense. Competency addresses a defendant’s mental state at trial, while insanity pertains to their mental state at the time of the offense (Bartol & Bartol, 2021, p. 179). The distinction of time is highly relevant. A defendant could have been insane during the commission of the offense but competent to stand trial or sane during the commission of the offense but incompetent to stand trial (p. 179).
Diminished capacity is “neither an excuse nor justification” for the defendant’s conduct; rather, it is a strategy to prove that the defendant lacked the requisite mens rea and is, therefore, innocent of the offense charged (Legal Information Institute, n.d.-b). Defendants may maintain that “certain psychological disorders robbed them of mens rea” (A. M. Goldstein et al., 2013; as cited in Bartol & Bartol, 2021, p. 190).
Coercive Persuasion and Diminished Capacity Defenses
Certain cases represent a more novel approach to the nuances of mens rea and their relationship with criminal conduct. Novel legal theories surrounding the defendant’s state of mind have included a hybrid form of a diminished capacity defenses with the nuances of psychological control and coercion. 18 USC § 1591(e)(2) defines coercion to mean:
“(A) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (B) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or (C) the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process.
As a term, coercive persuasion is rooted in the Korean War Era and relates to the efforts undertaken by the Chinese to persuade American prisoners of war to change their form of thinking (Cornell University, n.d., para. 5). Edgar Schien (1961) and colleagues investigated this phenomenon and determined that it surrounds a complex sequence of systematic cognitive programming that involves “unfreezing, changing, and refreezing” the detainee’s cognitive patterns (Cornell University, n.d.).
Schien et al. determined that for this metamorphosis to occur and become fixed, the captor must have a motive, a direction of change, and a reward matrix (para. 6). The process is synonymous with brainwashing. Antecedents for the condition surround one’s belief that their captor can and will kill them, the belief one cannot escape, and isolation from other normative human interactions, which surrounds the captor’s inflated acts of kindness and apparent care for the detainee’s welfare (Cornell University, n.d., para. 9).
Brainwashing and Stockholm Syndrome
Brainwashing is regarded as a “systematic effort to persuade nonbelievers to accept a certain allegiance, command, or doctrine” and surrounds techniques designed to “manipulate human thought or action against the desire, will, or knowledge of the individual” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d., para. 1) Popular culture associates brainwashing with a similar phenomenon known as Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome, also known as Survival Identification Syndrome, occurs when victims develop loyalty and compassion for their captors due to prolonged exposure to isolation and abuse, as seen in the 1973 Swedish bank robbery case where the phenomena was visually depicted when a hostage embraced their captor following their release (Cornell University, n.d., para. 8).
Severe isolation, alongside significant emotional and physical pain, are facilitators of the transformative process (para. 10). Battered spouses, incest victims, abused children, prisoners of war, cult victims, and kidnapped or hostage victims (para. 10). Most notably, kidnapped victims can respond to captors in a compliant and supportive way as a means of survival (para. 11; Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d.). As the criterion describes, victims do so as a means of survival and, therefore, do so knowingly. Indeed, any defense scheme surrounding the defendant’s capacity interests the forensic psychologist.
Notable within the forensic domain, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.; DSM-5-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2022) includes “Identity Disturbance due to Prolonged and Intense Coercive Persuasion” under Other Specified Dissociative Disorders (OSDD) category (Doychak & Raghavan, 2023).
Background of the Patty Hearst Kidnapping
At or about nine o’clock, on the evening of February 4, 1974, three armed subjects broke into the residence of nineteen-year-old Berkeley, California, sophomore student Patrica Hearst (Ewing & McCann, 2006, p. 31). Violently, they dragged Hearst from her apartment and into a waiting car, which then drove away (p. 31).
Unknown until three days later, her captors were a “self-styled militant revolutionary group,” regarded today as domestic terrorists, known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), which was comprised of a “loosely organized band of ex-convicts and political misfits” (p. 31).
Hearst was the daughter of Randolph Hearst, “one of the wealthiest men in America” who owned radio, television, and news agencies nationwide (p. 31). Initially, the SLA reported that Hearst was a prisoner of war and would be executed if their demands were not met (p, 31). The motive for the kidnapping surrounded the Hearst family’s wealth and capacity to serve the purposes of the SLA; in other words, the SLA intended to exploit the Hearst “name and fortune in a way that America would never forget (p. 32). The SLA’s first demand surrounded food delivery to California residents while the second required that all communiques be published “in full in all newspapers and all other forms of media” (p. 31).
A significant event occurred when the SLA included an audio recording from Hearst indicating that she was not and had not been “brainwashed, drugged, tortured, hypnotized or in any way confused” (p. 31). This statement was a preface to her subsequent declaration, in which she elaborated on her situation and revealed the choices her captors had presented to her. First, she could be released; without fear for her safety, she could freely return home, or in the alternative, she could “join the forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army” (p. 32).
Hearst then dictated her decision. She changed her name to Tania and committed to “stay and fight” (p. 32). On April 15, 1974, Hearst, identifying herself as Tania, alongside two members of the SLA all brandishing firearms, robbed the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco (p. 32). Later, Hearst, acting on behalf of the SLA, publicly took credit for the April 15 robbery (p. 32). U.S. Attorney General William Saxbe told reporters during a Washington press conference that Hearst “was not a reluctant participant” in the robberies but rather a “common criminal” (p. 32). The FBI’s largest manhunt was underway (p. 33).
On May 16, 1974, while two SLA members were arrested for shoplifting, Hearst opened fire with an automatic weapon, enabling the SLA members to escape (p. 33). On May 17, 1974, police surrounded a known SLA hideout and engaged gunfire with SLA members (p. 33). According to Ewing and McCann (2006), Hearst was not among the six SLA members killed during the police raid (p. 33). Throughout the summer, Hearst and the surviving SLA members fled California, settling in Pennsylvania only to return several months later in the fall of 1974 (p. 33).
Upon their return, they robbed two other banks (p. 33). In April 1975, during the second bank robbery, Hearst was the get-away driver, waiting outside as a woman was killed inside of the bank (p. 33). Later the same year, Hearst helped the SLA plant and detonate four bombs in the San Francisco area (p. 33). Two destroyed police vehicles, and one exploded at the Marin County Civic Center (p. 33). On September 18, 1975, armed with an arrest warrant, the FBI arrested Hearst without incident in her residence (p. 33). When identifying the detainee, agents asked, ‘Are you Patty Hearst?’ to which Hearst responded in the affirmative (p. 33).
Legal Strategies: Brainwashing and Diminished Capacity
FBI agents arrested Hearst on September 18, 1975, and charged her with bank robbery (Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), n.d., para. 11). When admitted to the detention center following her arrest, Hearst identified her occupation as “Urban guerrilla” (p. 33).
A 162-page psychological evaluation conducted by four court-appointed doctors found Hearst competent to stand trial but “emotionally impaired to a significant degree” (p. 34). Hearst’s IQ had fallen from 130 to 109; she was frail, and personality measures revealed a young woman who was “sad, hopeless, withdrawn, emotionally distressed and expressing a cry for help,” suffered from “traumatic neurosis with dissociative features,” and had been “subjected to powerfully effective coercive manipulation by her captors” (p. 34). She was permitted psychotherapy while in custody (p. 34).
The Defense Strategy
The United States v. Hearst matter went to trial on February 4, 1976, alongside F. Lee Bailey as lead counsel (pp. 35-36). The defense strategy rejected conventional insanity or diminished capacity defenses, instead arguing that Hearst acted under “duress or coercion,” specifically, a form of coercive persuasion akin to brainwashing (p. 36). Defenses surrounding duress and coercion are rare and are typically accompanied by testimony from experts in the psychological domains (p. 36), as was the case when Bailey argued that the SLA had brainwashed Hearst (Cornell University, n.d.). The defense relied on the expert testimony of four witnesses to prove its theory, which surrounded coercive persuasion, “referred to in the vernacular as brainwashing” (emphasis added; p. 37).
Coercive persuasion as a defense strategy could arguably reduce the degree of mens rea, a critical component in the statutory scheme required to convict a defendant of a crime. The defense posture was to reduce or eliminate the culpable state of mind required by the government to convict Hearst (Legal Information Institute, n.d.-c).
The Government’s Strategy and Rebuttal
When a defendant asserts an affirmative defense, the defendant bears the burden of proof at trial. [1] The Government merely had to refute the coercive persuasion defense, as Hearst’s legal strategy strategically did not contest whether Hearst was the person who committed the crime. On the contrary, the defense conceded that she was the offender, but argued that she would not have committed the crime but for the coercion she experienced.
The government did not contest whether Hearst was, in fact, kidnapped or not. In criminal prosecutions, the burden of proof rests on the government; Hearst could have remained entirely silent and forced the government to prove each element of the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence presented by the government must be “so strong there is no reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime” (Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, n.d.-a).
The government relied on statements made by Hearst before her arrest, after her detention, and videographic evidence from the crime scenes to prove their case in chief and rested on the testimony of two government experts to rebut the defense theory of coercive persuasion (Cornell University, n.d., para. 4). (Ewing & McCann, 2006, p. 43). The government relied heavily on video footage of Hearst brandishing a firearm during the bank robbery and her public statements as ‘Tania,’ which suggested voluntary participation.
The visual evidence was difficult for the jury to ignore and undermined the credibility of the defense’s coercion argument. This footage served as visual proof of her voluntary participation, which undermined the defense’s argument that she was acting under coercion. The jury likely found this compelling, as it showed Hearst engaging in criminal acts with apparent agency and confidence. With the conclusion of the presentation of evidence, the jury was tasked with assessing the validity of the coercive persuasion defense.
The Jury’s Verdict
The verdict, representing the Court’s finding, was returned quickly: it took only a day for the jury to consider the facts (emphasis added; p. 42). After reconciling the testimony of six expert witnesses, including four for the defense and two for the government, who opined to varying degrees as to the likelihood that the SLA coercively persuaded Hearst to participate in violations of law surrounding robbery and firearms, the jury returned a verdict for the government (p. 42). Hearst was sentenced to seven years imprisonment (p. 42). In February 1979, after twenty-two months, she was granted clemency and released from custody by President Jimmy Carter (Cornell University, n.d., para. 5). The Hearst case concluded on January 20, 2001, when President Bill Clinton granted Hearst a presidential pardon (para. 6).
Judicial Influence
While it is rare to consider a jurist as a party to the case, in this case, one could argue that the presiding judge had a preconceived notion about the veracity of the psychological opinions offered during trial testimony. Expert testimony in federal court is construed liberally. In other words, the bar to be certified as an expert is not high (Ewing & McCann, 2006, p. 38). The Court admonished jurors to remember that psychological opinions offered by experts are only opinions (p. 43). This statement may have reduced the effectiveness of the defense experts’ testimony by minimizing the value of the medical opinions offered by court-certified experts.
Role(s) of the psychologist(s)/psychiatrist(s) in the case
In analyzing the contributions of six different psychological perspectives concerning the legal defense of coercive persuasion, the opinions varied as expected between the government’s experts and defense experts (pp. 36-42).
For the Court
As previously discussed, the nexus of Hearst’s case surrounded her state of mind during the commission of a crime proximate to her kidnapping and subsequent involvement with organized crime. To this end, the Court ordered a psychological evaluation and received 162-page document surrounding her condition. As previously discussed, the Court found her competent to stand trial but observed significant emotional impairment and loss of intellect. The report’s notable findings of the evaluation are supportive of a condition known then as traumatic neurosis with dissociative features, which today is referenced as post-traumatic stress disorder (p. 35). She required extensive psychotherapy and was amenable to doing so as she was “expressing a cry for help” (p. 35).
The Court ordered psychological experts to evaluate Hearst’s competency to stand trial. The experts concluded that she met the two necessary criteria: (1) she understood the charges against her, and (2) she was able to participate in her defense. Hearst exhibited significant trauma responses and underwent several months of therapy. Her willingness to seek help demonstrated the lasting impact of her kidnapping, though not to the extent that it impaired her ability to participate in her legal defense. The defense, however, called its own expert witnesses to interperet these findings and present an alternative perspective on Hearst’s mental state.
For the Defense
Dr. Louis Joloyn West, professor and Chairman of Psychiatry at the University of California Los Angeles and a researcher who investigated the behavior and adjustment of prisoners of war (pp. 26-26). West was considered a national authority on coercive persuasion (p. 26). Essentially, West testified that Hearst was made compliant through coercion, and the true test of her captor’s transformation rested within the sphere of choice presented to Hearst: leave freely or stay and fight (p. 27).
Under West’s theory, the presumption was that if Hearst had chosen to leave the SLA, the transformation would not have been effective, resulting in Hearst’s death (p. 27). West reviewed the findings of one of the court-appointed experts, Dr. Margaret Singer, a well-known clinical psychologist who administered psychological testing on Hearst during the court-appointed evaluation (p.37). He also reviewed a letter he sent to the Hearst family before the hearing, which outlined a “powerful medical and legal argument…for her defense” (p. 37). West’s credibility was weakened when he admitted his prior opposition to the concept of brainwashing, as published in a 1963 article (p. 37).
Dr. Martin Orne was the second defense expert to testify. Orne was a psychologist and psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania and operated as a practitioner-academic with a specialized interest in hypnosis and polygraph testing (p. 37). His testimony surrounded the veracity of Hearsts claims and testified that “Miss Hearst really simply didn’t lie” (p. 39).
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton was the final expert to testify on Hearst’s behalf and was convinced that the SLA had coerced “not converted.” Lifton was a well-known professor of psychiatry at Yale whose interests surrounded communist thought reform, psychohistory, and the impact of mass disaster (39-40). He was uniquely positioned to form the distinction between coercion and conversion for the Court. From the plain language of the words, conversion surrounds free will and freedom of choice, whereas coercion does not. Lifton’s testimony was liquified by the notion that he reached his conclusions “prior to examining the evidence and documents in the case, including the bank robbery films” not to mention the audio recording in which Hearst first revealed herself as Tania (p. 40).
Following the Government’s experts, defense counsel relied on the testimony of Dr. Nicholas Groth, a former subordinate of Dr. Harry Kozol, a psychiatrist in charge of a state psychiatric hospital (p. 41). Groth testified that Kozel, a government expert, had a personal stake in the Hearst matter, perhaps even a vendetta (p. 42). Groth testified that Kozel, on several occasions, referred to the Hearst family as “venal and disgusting people” even referring to Catherine Hearst as “a whore” (p. 42).
Concerning Drs. West, Orne, Lifton, Kozel, and Groth each played a relevant role in Hearst’s defense. Each was uniquely qualified in their respective fields to the degree that they would qualify as an expert under the federal court’s rather liberal view on expert qualifications. Each held advanced degrees, were seen as specialists in their respective fields, and were employed in their respective fields at the time of their testimony.
The Court criticized West’s testimony. Following an objection, the Judge admonished counsel, then West, for offering long-form responses rather than short-form question-and-answer-style responses. This highlights the trial Court’s receptivity to expert opinion surrounding the defendant’s psychiatric disposition. Again, following Orne’s testimony, the Court issued a special jury instruction concerning Orne’s opinion, reinforcing that the case must be decided based on facts rather than the speculative nature of Orne’s testimony.
Orne’s credibility was further damaged when he conceded that psychiatrists are not effective at determining truthfulness (p. 39). When one testifies that they are a lie detector and then admits that psychiatrists are not effective lie detectors, credibility naturally becomes a concern.
But the damage didn’t stop there. Those who have never reviewed documents associated with the case in which they are testifying subject themselves to a certain degree of scrutiny, as did Dr. Lifton. Lifton’s failure to review case documents or evidence prior to testifying cast doubt on the thoroughness of his conclusions, ultimately damaging his credibility (p. 41).
For the Government
After receiving proper notice of Hearst’s desire to call experts to render their opinion as to duress and coercive effect, the government called two rebuttal witnesses; neither was an expert on brainwashing or coercive persuasion (p. 41).
Dr. Joel Fort was called to rebut West, Orne, and Lifton, who had testified as an expert in psychiatry in over 200 cases (p. 40). Fort testified that Hearst was a willing convert to the SLA and testified as to her personality before the kidnapping, then attempted to connect the two to support his opinion that she was a willing convert. Fort provided a vivid account of Hearst’s role in the rescue shooting outside of the sporting goods store, highlighting her proactive use of an automatic weapon to aid SLA members in escaping. He did not testify well but significantly impacted Hearst’s defense (p. 41). Bailey, for the defense, was able to reduce his credibility on cross-examination, even branding him a liar (p. 41).
Dr. Harry Kozol testified as the second government expert (p. 41). He was a Harvard Law School dropout before graduating from medical school (p. 41). He then served as the director of a state hospital for sex offenders (p. 41). Unlike Fort, Kozol was effective during direct testimony, revealing his opinion that Hearst voluntarily entered the bank to rob it: “This was an act of her own free will” (p. 41).
Unlike the defense, the government’s experts were arguably more effective than the defense experts. Drs. Fort and Kozel were well educated and seen as experts in their fields in the forensic legal sense. Fort had testified as an expert in over 200 matters. Yet, his lack of publishing experience on “brainwashing, coercive persuasion, attitude change, or kidnapping,” alongside improper contact with the Hearst family and a conflict of interest concern about devising legal strategies for the government, damaged his credibility (p. 41). When taken together, the expert’s opinion that Hearst had been converted not coerced, resonated with the jury, especially when balanced with the evidence the government had already introduced.
Implications following the verdict
The Hearst kidnapping and subsequent transformation to Tiana. The granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst was an “heiress to part of his fortune” (Ramm, 2014). Naturally, she was a prime target for kidnapping, considering the backdrop of bank robberies during the period alongside the botched bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1973, which seemed to capture a significant amount of worldwide attention. According to media reports, following the kidnapping, “hundreds of journalists had congregated outside the Hearst household” (Ramm, 2014). Naturally, when Tania emerged through the systematic releases of communique from the SLA, the world took notice. Events swirled around this time in geopolitical politics: Watergate had just broken, the oil crisis deepened, and radical counterculture groups detonated “4,000 bombs planted in America between 1972-1973” (Smith, 2016). The Zodiac killer was well underway in the slaughtering of his victims. The Hearst saga “underscored a rift in American society, as younger generations grew increasingly disillusioned” with the political systems in the United States (Smith, 2016).
The trial was sensational and regarded as the “trial of the century” (Ramm, 2014). Between 1974 and 1976 Hearst appeared on “the cover of Newsweek magazine on seven occasions” (Ramm, 2014). Accordingly, her saga has been “enshrined” in American history (Smith, 2016). There was a certain mobilization underway during the period which was resisted the violence and disorder of the era, yet, following nearly a year long manhunt and after Hearst’s capture, public opinion “swayed significantly against her” (Smith, 2016).
While public opinion seemed to shift against her, a new focus on psychiatric conditions and care emerged from the era. The New York Times maintains an extensive archive of the agency’s coverage of the trial, including the psychiatric testimony of Drs. Martin Orne, Jolyon West, and Jay Lifton (Turner, 1976). Dr. Robert Lifton even permissibly published his opinion on the treatment of Hearst, including his opinion that Hearst was absolutely “threatened repeatedly with death, humiliated through physical duress, [and] isolated” which resulted in a significant “victim blaming” (Lifton, 1976). Unfortunately, it does not appear that Lifton testified with this degree of specificity or credibility during his trial testimony in the Hearst case. Notably, Lifton remarks:
“In my experience with people who have undergone extreme trauma and coercive procedures, there is always a difficult struggle toward understanding what has happened to one, and part of the recovery process is the victim’s emerging anger at his former victimizers” (Lifton, 1976, para. 19).
Naturally, the increased media exposure to a defense of the psychological variety was muted by the public opinion that mounted against Hearst during the period. Nevertheless, this case became highly important and is still studied today in forensic literature surrounding the psychological sciences. It was only a year after the Stockholm bank heist, which seemed to captivate the world. It further placed a new degree of focus on the nature of scientific evidence presented by psychologists and rendered in the form of an expert opinion.
As discussed, however, the trial Court didn’t receive the expert opinions of defense experts with the same degree of credibility that the Court received the government’s experts. This notion is reinforced by the continual admonishment jurors received related to the opinions of those called to testify on behalf of Hearst.
A routine internet search reveals scores of pages that cover the trial, its outcome, and even the manhunt that preceded it. A new degree of emphasis was placed on criminal culpability and the causal connection between mens rea and the commission of crime. To this end, public policy has not shifted: at the time of this writing, no indicia of a case that represented the defense offered by counsel has been successful in the United States federal courts. Contrastingly, defendants have attempted to root their defenses around coercive persuasion, the vernacular of brainwashing. It is not a “new concept,” has been “used over time” and has never been used successfully in a criminal defense (Emory, 2010).
Conclusion
While the final component of this study requires a reflection upon the teaching and learning from it, one must ask, if brainwashing has been tried since the Hearst case and afterward, unsuccessfully, is it that the psychologists who deliver trial testimony do so ineffectively or that the culpability matrix is so strong as to be unable to rise to the level required to overcome the actions of the defendant in proportion to the testimony of trained, certified, medical experts.
It is hard to say. The trial testimony of the defense experts was unimpressive. While the Court had examined the mental capacity of the defendant as related to competency and revealed a treasure trove of mitigating circumstances, none were strong enough to overcome the direct observable evidence offered by the government. Hearst, bearing a firearm, looking over a room of hostages while a bank robbery was underway was merely too much to overcome for a juror.
Credibility in the expert domain is key. The facts of each case are relevant and worthy of analysis and individual consideration. Speaking to the media, either before or after trial testimony, as a forensic psychologist should be frowned upon as should having any contact with the defendant directly or indirectly through family members. Conventional wisdom should suggest that communication should be between counsel and provider. When reviewing defendants, especially concerning a style of affirmative defense surrounding a psychiatric condition as a mediating component, it is essential that assessment tools be utilized to confer a degree of confidence to the statements offered by the expert: beyond that, they are only informed opinions.
There was little in the literature concerning assessments or measures that were undertaken by Hearst, except the mention that during her preliminary competency evaluation, a Court ordered psychiatrist administered them (see generally (Ewing & McCann, 2006, pp. 36–37) These distinctions insulate the forensic psychologist from a particular degree of credibility difficulty which could manifest during their trial testimony.
The case of The United States v. Patty Hearst was decided. The jury found Hearst guilty of robbery and firearms charges and sentenced her to prison. Since that time, she was commuted and pardoned by two chief executives for the United States of America. To that end, she either clouts significant political capital, or public policy did indeed shift even in the slightest form, from the top, to see the rationale of the situation: she was kidnapped, beaten, raped and sodomized, deprived of human living conditions, and subsequently gave in to her captors and became one of them. No greater test of one’s molding of the mind could reveal the extent to which it can be victimized through constant manipulation than by offering their subject their freedom. At that moment, Patty Hearst became Tiana, went on a crime spree, was arrested, detained, and rehabilitated. She was then tried and convicted, commuted and pardoned. It seems that public policy eventually caught up with the facts of the case, and cured injustice, through the only means available.
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See In re Bressman, 327 F.3d 229, 237-38 (3d Cir. 2003) (stating that the party asserting an affirmative defense bears the burden of proof at trial on that issue); A. Natterman & CIE Gmbh v. Bayer Corp., 428 F. Supp. 2d 253, 257 (E.D. Pa. 2006) (noting that, “With respect to Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on their affirmative defense . . ., it is the moving party (Defendants) who will bear the burden of proof at trial.”); Schwarzer, W. (1984). Summary judgment under the Federal Rules, 99 F.R.D. 465, 487-88 (explaining that “where the moving party has the burden [at trial]—the plaintiff on a claim for relief or the defendant on an affirmative defense . . ..”). With respect to the affirmative defense of justified or privileged interference specifically, “[t]his is an affirmative defense which must be pleaded and proved [by defendant]; the plaintiff need not prove that the defendant’s conduct was not justified or privileged” (Torts, 87 C.J.S. § 47, 2006). ↑
