Patty Hearst Trial: A Chronology
by Michelle Pratt (3L)

2/20/54 Patricia Campbell Hearst is born in San Francisco.

Fall 1973
 The Symbionese Liberation Army is formed.

2/4/74 Hearst is kidnapped from her Berkeley, California apartment by an urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army ("SLA").

2/7/74 Paul Fischer, the News Director of KPFA reads the SLA “Arrest Warrant” for Patricia Campbell Hearst (the local radio station received the SLA communiqué).

2/12/74 The SLA sends a second communiqué, a letter, and an audiotaped message from DeFreeze and Hearst.

2/22/74 The first disastrous attempt to distribute food for Hearst’s freedom occurs.  Crowds form around the Hunter’s Point distribution site in West Oakland.  Rioting breaks out, leading to dozens of injuries and arrests.

4/3/74 A tape is released from Hearst in which she announces her intention to “stay and fight” with the SLA … Posters in support of Heasrt begin to appear throughout Berkeley.

4/15/74 Hearst is photographed using an assault rifle while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco.

5/16/74 Hearst is involved in shoplifting incident at Mel’s Sporting Good store in Los Angeles.

5/17/74 The “Gotterdaemmerung” takes place . . . Six SLA members die in a fierce gun battle involving hundreds of LA police.  The event is televised live.

6/2/74 In response to the May 17th gun battle, Kathleen Soliah organizes a rally in Berkeley’s Ho Chi Minh Park.

August 1975 The LA police discover pipe bombs planted under two police cars.  They conclude SLA members planted the bombs in retaliation for the May 17th shootout.

9/18/75 The SLA comes to an effective end.  Several of the group’s new associates, placed under surveillance by the FBI in hopes they would lead agents to Hearst and the Harrises, do their job.  Hearst is arrested in an apartment with other SLA members.

1/15/76 The trial of Patty Hearst begins.

3/20/76 Patty Hearst is convicted of bank robbery.

3/26/76 Attorney Vincent Hallinan publicly denounces the legal defense of Hearst.  He says, “No amount of negligence, stupidity, or idiocy could have loused up the case worse than the way it was loused up . . .”

2/1/79 Hearst is released from prison after only serving twenty-two months, her seven-year prison term having been commuted by President Jimmy Carter.

6/16/99 Kathleen Soliah (who adopted the pseudonym, Sara Jane Olson) surrenders without incident to police in Minnesota.

October 1999 Hearst is ordered to testify against Soliah/Olsen for the prosecution.

1/20/01 Patty Hearst is granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on the final day of his presidency.

10/31/01 Just before her trial, Soliah/Olsen pleads guilty to attempting to bomb two police cars.  She is sentenced to at least five years in prison.

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