The Patty Hearst trial undoubtedly will be one of the most memorable courtroom dramas of the century, not only because of its human interest aspects but also because of the legal and psychological questions it aired regarding terrorism, the "crime of the 70s."
The questions it posed can be divided into two groups: those dealing with the terrorists and their strategies and those dealing with the terrorist victim (eg, the behavioral "norms" that might be expected under such abnormal stress, or the victim's motivation for behavior that would seem conducive to the terrorists' cause and contrary to the good of the general society).
Actually the two groups of questions overlap. For example, one big question concerned how much and for how long Hearst was a victim. Could she in fact have faked her victimization and helped plan her own kidnapping? (This possibility was explored and dismissed by the FBI.) Was