Biography
Born in Baltimore and raised in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, the daughter of an engineer, Emily Schwartz earned a B.A. in language arts from Indiana University Bloomington, where she met William Harris. She used the nom de guerre "Yolanda" as an SLA soldier. Captured September 18, 1975, she served eight years for kidnapping Patty Hearst and was paroled May 27, 1983. In 2002 she was charged in the 1975 Crocker National Bank/Myrna Opsahl killing — prosecutors named her as the shooter — and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, serving an additional eight-year term. Emily Harris (later Emily Montague) was a co-founder of the Symbionese Liberation Army with her then-husband William Harris. She was arrested with him in San Francisco on September 18, 1975, ending the SLA underground. She was convicted in 1978 of kidnapping Patty Hearst and sentenced to 11 years; she was paroled in 1983. In 2002 she was re-indicted along with William Harris, James Kilgore, Sara Jane Olson, and Michael Bortin for the April 21, 1975 Carmichael bank robbery in which Myrna Opsahl was killed. She pleaded guilty in February 2003 to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 8 years in California state prison. She was released in early 2011.
The January 1976 joint statement with Bill, written in Los Angeles County Jail, accompanied a $30 million civil suit alleging prejudicial leaks by law-enforcement agencies. It distinguishes their pending Los Angeles charges from accusations circulated in the press and denies NWLF membership and several uncharged attacks. These denials are attributed to the defendants; later independently established outcomes are retained. Pages3-10. Source: https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC514_scans/SLA%20Dragon/514.SLA.Dragon7.Febmarch1976.Periodical.pdf
Breakthrough reports Emily Harris’s August 31, 1978 guilty plea in the Patricia Hearst kidnapping case and transfer to Santa Rita, alleging mistreatment by prison authorities.
Dragon prints Harris’s signed May 22, 1976 response on feminism, class and gay liberation, contrasting her analysis with the New World Liberation Front and Weather Underground statements. It is a dated primary example of her political writing during the existing prosecution period, not evidence of a new arrest, transfer, sentence or release.
The issue reproduces sentencing-statement excerpts and reports eleven years to life for kidnapping, robbery and vehicle-code violations. The Berkeley Hearst kidnapping arraignment remained scheduled for September 22; a scheduled appearance is not a completed trial or new incarceration. The sentence is nominal, not measured time served.
