Lawyers Seek to Exclude SLA Evidence

Attorneys for 1970s bomb plot suspect Sara Jane Olson have asked a state appeals court to bar evidence of dozens of other crimes tied to the radical Symbionese Liberation Army at her trial--including two murders, several bank robberies and bombings and the 1974 kidnapping of publishing heiress Patty Hearst.

Defense attorneys Shawn S. Chapman and J. Tony Serra argue in papers filed in Los Angeles that many of the crimes prosecutors want to include at the trial occurred long before Olson, then known as Kathleen Soliah, was associated with the SLA.

Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman ruled in January--over defense objections--that he would allow evidence of a wide range of SLA crimes under the prosecution’s expanded conspiracy theory. The petition to the 2nd District of the California Court of Appeal seeks to overturn Ideman’s ruling. The court papers also contend that Ideman erred by failing to hear testimony and receive evidence before ruling.

Olson was indicted in 1976--and formally charged in 1999--for her alleged role in an SLA plot to kill Los Angeles police officers by planting nail-packed pipe bombs under two squad cars. The August 1975 bomb scheme allegedly was intended to avenge the deaths of six SLA members in a fire and shootout at their Los Angeles hide-out the previous year.

The bombs did not detonate, and no one was hurt. Hearst and the other SLA members were arrested on other charges a month later in San Francisco, ending a highly publicized national police search. Hearst linked Olson to the bomb plot in statements to the FBI, and in her 1982 book, “Every Secret Thing.”

Olson, meanwhile, built a life in Minnesota as a doctor’s wife, mother and community volunteer during the two decades she eluded authorities. She was arrested in June 1999 near her home in St. Paul.

After several delays and changes of defense lawyers, Olson’s trial is scheduled to begin in February.

Chapman and Serra assert in a 35-page petition filed last week that prosecutors are seeking to “salvage” a weak case by putting the SLA’s entire history on trial. The original indictment and testimony before the Los Angeles County grand jury in 1976 dealt only with the events immediately before the failed bombing, they point out in court papers.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Michael Latin and Eleanor Hunter are not commenting on the case. But they have indicated in a trial brief that they plan to include evidence of other SLA crimes under a blanket conspiracy theory--and to corroborate testimony by Hearst, a reluctant but key witness for the prosecution.

Hearst, then 19, was kidnapped from her apartment near the UC Berkeley campus in February 1974. She spent 18 months with the group, first as a captive, then as a converted comrade. After her 1975 arrest, she was tried and convicted of bank robbery.

Olson was first publicly linked to the SLA in June 1974, when she gave a speech in Berkeley eulogizing the six dead SLA members, including her best friend, Angela Atwood.

The defense argues in its court papers that many of the criminal acts prosecutors seek to include occurred in 1973--long before either Hearst or Olson was connected with the SLA.

Olson, prosecutors have argued, “knew what she was getting into” when she joined the radicals and helped hide them. Olson has denied being a member of the SLA, saying the group ceased to exist after the Los Angeles shootout.

The conspiracy allegation has expanded since Olson’s arrest, from the 1976 plot to kill police officers and blow up LAPD squad cars to a scheme to incite a revolution and overthrow the government.

Olson’s defense claims that including testimony and other evidence of dozens of unrelated crimes--some remain unsolved to this day--is improper, unduly prejudicial, time-consuming and potentially confusing to a jury.

“The prosecution did not have a strong case against Sara Jane Olson when she was indicted in 1976. The passage of 24 years, with the fading memories, the loss of evidence and the death of witnesses, has not helped the prosecution,” Chapman said in the court papers. The defense claims prosecutors are trying to “bolster” their case by “widening the alleged conspiracy.”

No hearing date has been set.