Judge Bans Cameras in Courtroom for Sara Jane Olson Trial

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Ideman has declared his courtroom a “camera-free zone” during the upcoming trial of Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive Sara Jane Olson.

Ideman said he fears that the nearly 200 witnesses, including newspaper heiress and former SLA member Patty Hearst, could become targets of harassment if their faces appear on television and in the newspapers day after day.

“It is just too intimidating,” he said. “I’m not going to permit it.”

Olson, also known as Kathleen Soliah, is scheduled to stand trial Jan. 8 on charges that she attempted in 1975 to kill two LAPD officers by placing a bomb under two squad cars.

Olson was arrested in June of 1999 in St. Paul, Minn., after being a fugitive for 24 years. She maintains that she was not in Los Angeles when the bombs were planted.

Judge Had Earlier Issued a Gag Order

The barring of all cameras is the latest move by Ideman to try to limit publicity in the high-profile case, which is expected to last six months and revisit the history of the SLA.

The small leftist group, started by a convicted felon in California after the Vietnam War, planned to launch a revolution. It is best known for the kidnapping and subsequent conversion of Hearst, who now maintains she was brainwashed.

Ideman issued a gag order early in the case, only to withdraw it after Hearst and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti were accused of violating it.

Ideman said Friday he also is considering impaneling an anonymous jury. He said he may prohibit the names of jurors from being written on a questionnaire, even if the document is withheld from reporters.

“These things have a way of leaking,” Ideman said.

The judge said he became more concerned about the identities of jurors and the presence of cameras after the phone numbers and addresses of the two officers whom Olson is accused of trying to kill were posted on a Web site established to raise money for her legal defense. One of the two officers is retired.

At Ideman’s insistence, the confidential information was removed from the site, but the judge clearly remains troubled by the incident.

“I think it was an egregious error, and consequences will be great, not just here but down the line,” he said.

Ideman likened use of the information to a Web site that posted the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortions. The antiabortion site, known as “The Nuremberg Files,” was shut down last year. Its founders were fined after a federal judge in Oregon ruled that the site constituted a threat to the lives of the doctors.

Friday’s ruling came in response to a request by Court TV and Olson defense attorney Shawn S. Chapman that the judge reconsider a decision he made last year to bar video cameras.

Ideman ruled in January that he would not allow TV cameras because Hearst planned to testify that she was raped while in the SLA. Rape victims are often granted secrecy in the criminal system.

Court TV attorney Kelli Sager asked Ideman to reconsider Friday because Hearst has done several media interviews since then in which she talked extensively about the rape and her experience in the SLA.

Chapman argued in support of Sager’s motion. She said that the posting of the officers’ information on Web site had been an accident and that it should not be used as a reason to prohibit cameras.

Organizers of the Web site, meanwhile, issued a statement Friday insisting that the posting was a misunderstanding and accusing Ideman of acting like a prosecutor instead of an impartial judge.

The Sara Olson Defense Committee said it routinely posts motions filed in the case and was unaware that the information about the officers had later been sealed.