Nation: Patty Is Free And Older

Carter commutes her sentence

When all legal efforts failed to overturn the conviction of Patty Hearst for armed robbery, her lawyers and friends mounted a campaign to persuade President Carter to commute her sentence. They argued that Patty had suffered enough and indeed had been treated with special severity by the law because of the wealth and social prominence of her family. Thousands of calls and letters poured into the White House urging her release.

Carter and the Department of Justice agreed with those pleas, and last week after a presidential commutation, Patty Hearst was freed from a California prison, five months before...

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