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Social status can affect a person greatly, even in criminal cases. An event pertaining an impact of social status is the case of Patricia Hearst and the Symboinese Liberation Army. Patricia Hearst (Patty) is an American socialite and best know to be the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, who founded the Hearst media empire. While attending the University of Berkeley, in California, she was abducted by a terrorist group called the Symboinese Liberation Army (SLA) on February 24th, 1974. The group first attempted to claim a large sum of ransom from the Hearst family. The Marxist group of terrorists was formed at the University of Berkeley and believed in the union of all the races and classes. Donald Defreeze an escaped convict who referred to himself as Cinque led the SLA. Although kidnapped, in a strange turn of events, Patty joined the SLA and was later tried, very publically, for her actions and stated that it was brainwashing that caused her to join the rebels. How did Patricia Hearst's social status affect her cooperation with the SLA? The fact that Patricia Hearst had a wealthy and well-known family background gave credibility to her claim that brainwashing caused her to cooperate with the SLA.
Patricia Hearst made it clear to the world that she had transitioned from victim to accomplice in the SLA through audio recordings and aided in a crime. Soon after Hearst was kidnapped, a series of audiotapes were released to the press, stating that she had now become a member of the group. In these tapes, she was denouncing her family and their choice of lifestyle and announced that she had joined “self-styled urban guerillas”. Shortly after the tapes were released, Hearst started to also participate in illegal activ...
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...Hearst would not have been commuted nor pardoned if she was not well known. Her social status allowed her to escape her punishments for the crimes that she had committed. Although Hearst was convicted for her crime, she was excused of it because of her social status and wealthy background.
Patricia Hearst was initially convicted for her cooperation with the SLA but was later commuted and pardoned for her illegal activity because of her social status and wealth. Hearst pleaded that she was brainwashed and was only able to say this because of her social status. Her notoriety gave credibility to her claim because someone who possessed such intelligence was unable to, in their right mind, join such a group. Brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome were the basis of her defense. Many still believe that Hearst got away with the crime she committed because of her wealth.
There are many reasons that the human race goes to war against each other. In the essay The Ecstasy of War (1997) by Barbara Ehrenreich, she states that one reason that war is started between men is people want to expand, to move further in life and the man-kind are trained to be ready for war.
One of the most famous cases of the mid-nineties (and possibly one of the most controversial) of the wealthy being above the law is the O.J. Simpson trial, who fatally stabbed his ex-wife Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. Being accused of murder, the court had sufficient biological and psychological evidence to prove Simpson’s act of murder. However, Simpson was found not guilty by the jury and lives as a fre...
On April 19th, 1989, Trisha Meili was the victim of violent assault, rape, and sodomy. The vicious attack left her in a coma for 12 days and The New York Times described it as “one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980’s.” The documentary, The Central Park Five, reveals the truth about what happened the night of April 19th, and how the subordinate group of young black boys were wrongly convicted. Analyzing the conflict theory of crime in association to the case of the central park five, understanding the way they were treated based on setting, why it was so easy for the law enforcement to pin the crime on the young black boys, and how wrongly convicting someone has great consequences along with relating it
"In the 1970s and 1980s Sierra Leone had a thriving tourism industry,” says Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the UK, after his trip to Sierra Leone. Later, however, the economy began staggering to a halt, and a new group rose to power with what many believed were strong and good willed beliefs.
In 1969 the first crime scenario took place with the murder of a man called Gary Hinman. According to Wikipedia “Atkins claimed she didn’t know a crime was going to take place, although she wrote in her 1977 book that she went to Hinman's home to get money and knew that it was possible they were going to kill him”. This fact proves her dishonesty to accept that she was part of the crime, which she later contradicts by writing the fact a possible crime in her book. This declaration just reveals her full participation and agreement in the murder of this man in a search for money.
At first Patty Hearst refused the fact that she was being both physically and psychologically abused by the SLA group. She announced the fact that she became part of the SLA group in her free will. The journalist Paul Krassner had an interview with Patty Hearst before Patty Hearst was captured by the FBI. Patty Hearst explained that she joined the SLA because she felt that the SLA could secure her freedom. She insisted that she was not being brainwashed; everything was only to find out who she really is.”She understood that she betrayed the society’s expectation on her ,but she does not regret any of it because she thinks she should not go against what she really is. She felt like the whole life before she became a part of SLA had been wasted.
One case that dominated the pages of The Revolution, the paper owned by Susan B. Anthony and edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, was the sentencing of a young girl to hang for the death of her child. While not a case of abortion, the death was termed an infanticide and drew strong opinions from the public as well as both the editors. The unfortunate Hester Vaughan, an English girl living in Philadelphia, was discovered in a tiny tenement room devoid of furniture February 8, 1868, forty-eight hours after giving birth. Alone during labor, without food or heat, she was found frail and feverish with her baby dead beside her. She was immediately brought to the police and imprisoned, under the assumption that she had killed her child. For thirty dollars, she acquired the services of a lawyer by the name of Goforth and underwent a brief trial. Having never actually confessed to committing the crime, she was nonetheless sentenced to death by County Judge Ludlow, and placed in Moyamensing Prison until her execution.
Patty Hearst was kidnapped from the University of California at Berkeley by the SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) when she was 19 years old. When she got kidnapped the SLA told her she had to join them or she gets hurt. She recorded an audiotape that could be heard around the world, saying that she is now part of the SLA. When she joined them, she participated in a criminal activity with the SLA in California. When she did the crime, they said that it was robbery and extortion. She took two million dollars from her father for the SLA so they could take over the world and the people.
Although many of her actions were parallel with fellow manager in General Accounting Troy Nordmand’s, he did not receive a prison sentence due to the fact that he attempted to leave the company (although Vinson did initially plan to resign). Conversely, Vinson was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home detention. One particularly interesting aspect of Betty Vinson’s case is the inclusion of her concerns over taking home pay and having health insurance, in addition to the fact that she had a positive reputation and was known for doing “anything you told her”. While it is normal to have concerns over job security, the emotional appeals in her situation add a different side to the story. One could argue that she is a victim -- she could have been targeted due to her reputation, or that fear drove her to do things she otherwise would not have considered. The issue here, however, is that she facilitated the fulfillment of Sullivan’s requests and pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. As far as the case specifies, despite any superior’s knowledge of Vinson’s tendencies, she was not absolutely forced to do or not do anything. Because she committed the crime and pleaded accordingly, the criminal charges and consequent sentencing was both expected and
On a sweltering 1892 August day in Fall River, Massachusetts, Andrew and Abby Borden were violently murdered in their home on Second Street. The subsequent police investigation and trial of Lizzie Borden gained national attention and rightfully so considering a female murder defendant on trial was and is to this day an extremely rare proceeding. The Lizzie Borden Trial held in 1893 attracted attention from nearly the entire United States with newspapers in New York City, Providence, and Boston publishing articles at a frenzied pace. The trial was the most sensational murder trial of the nineteenth century (excluding the Lincoln assassination) and despite an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence Lizzie was acquitted by a jury of twelve men. Several exceptional factors surrounding the case including the actions of key figures during trial, police investigation, and the fact a female was facing double murder charges make the case truly significant when looking at American legal history.
Our team presentation focused on three Latino gangs, MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), the Mexican Mafia and the Los Surenos gang. My part of the presentation was to provide information on the type of crime these three gangs are known to commit. The crimes committed by the MS-13 gang are varied, violent, and take place all over the country. The FBI even put together a task force called the MS-13 National Gang Task Force in December of 2004 to try to put a stop to this gang’s activities. (www.fbi.gov). Los Surenos or Sur-13, originally based in Los Angeles, has also branched out from turf wars with rival gangs to “for profit”, violent crimes across the country. The Mexican Mafia has a similar story to tell as well in regards to gang crimes, which again range from respect crimes, and retaliatory violence to crimes for profit.
Crime and criminalization are dependent on social inequality Social inequality there are four major forms of inequality, class gender race and age, all of which influence crime. In looking at social classes and relationship to crime, studies have shown that citizens of the lower class are more likely to commit crimes of property and violence than upper-class citizens: who generally commit political and economic crimes. In 2007 the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that families with an income of $15000 or less had a greater chance of being victimized; recalling that lower classes commit a majority of those crimes. We can conclude that crime generally happens within classes.
Al Capone led a life of crime and seemed impervious to the law. He could not be convicted of crime. It was
Beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women began to vocalize their opinions and desires for the right to vote. The Women’s Suffrage movement paved the way to the nineteenth Amendment in the United States Constitution that allowed women that right. The Women’s Suffrage movement started a movement for equal rights for women that has continued to propel equal opportunities for women throughout the country. The Women’s Liberation Movement has sparked better opportunities, demanded respect and pioneered the path for women entering in the workforce that was started by the right to vote and given momentum in the late 1950s.