TRIALS: Battle over Patty's Mind

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Demurely chic in a rust-colored brushed-corduroy pantsuit and green blouse, Patty settled herself calmly on the witness stand after the jury came back into court. Bailey took up a protective stance beside her. Prosecutor Browning then started to ask Patty about 20 documents taken from her and the Harrises' apartments after she was seized. The documents, Browning had said, showed that the defendant had spent the missing year "casing banks." The cache included a floor plan of a bank, a list of banks and a yellow spiral notebook containing what the prosecution said were notes by Patty, which amounted to "a laundry list of how to rob a bank."

When the prosecutor began to inquire into the "missing year," Patty replied: "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me and cause danger to myself and my family." During the next 45 minutes, Patty took refuge no fewer than 42 times in the Fifth Amendment protection against selfincrimination. Carter ruled, however, that she had to answer questions about the year because of her previous testimony. He warned: "If you persist to refuse to answer, Miss Hearst, it will be necessary to cite you for contempt."

Bailey was clearly worried about the impact that Patty's repeated citing of the Fifth and Judge Carter's warning would have on the jury. "The Government got what it wanted," he said later in bitterness. "They embarrassed her. The damage is done."

Patty's case also appeared to be damaged by Carter's decision to allow into evidence another controversial item: a tape made by the authorities of a jailhouse conversation between Patty and a visiting friend shortly after the defendant was captured on Sept. 18. Bailey argued that making the tape was an invasion of Patty's rights to privacy. Carter cited the "basic rule" that there was no right to privacy in jail.

During the chat with her visitor, Patty made a number of statements that undercut her basic defense that she had cooperated with the S.L.A. out of fear alone. Patty said she had been "pissed off' by her capture and that she had "a revolutionary feminist" viewpoint. She added: "My politics are real different from way back when." Questioned by Bailey, Patty said she had made the statements because of her fear of the Harrises. At the time, Emily Harris was assigned the cell adjoining hers.

Violent Transition. In the battle of the psychiatrists that followed, the defense led off with a respected authority on thought control: Dr. Louis Jolyon ("Jolly") West, 51, chairman of the psychiatry department at U.C.L.A. and director of the university's Neuropsychiatric Institute. West was certainly an eye-filling witness—a husky 6 ft. 4 in., he looked like a veteran pro linebacker and handled himself with assurance. Much of West's expertise in what is commonly called brainwashing came from studying 59 Air Force officers captured during the Korean War and subjected to a full thought-conversion process (see box page 26). More than half had participated in anti-American activities.

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