New Judge to Be Appointed in SLA Bombing Trial

Alleged Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson will get a new judge and most likely a delay in her upcoming trial on charges that she tried to kill two Los Angeles police officers more than two decades ago.

At a hearing Monday, Olson bowed her head and clasped her hands in prayer after being told that a new judge will handle the high-profile case.

Olson and her supporters have accused Superior Court Judge James Ideman of behaving more like a prosecutor than an impartial judge. His replacement will probably be Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler, officials said.

The last-minute change, court officials contend, is the result of a massive reshuffling of judicial assignments and has nothing to do with the Olson case.

For years, Ideman has wanted to be reassigned to the courthouse closer to his home, said Kyle Christopherson, a representative of the Superior Court.

“He has for a long time wanted to go to Torrance. Finally, an opening came,” Christopherson said. “It had nothing to do with any pending case.”

Juvenile Court Judge Cecil Mills, who was assigned by Ideman to help oversee discovery in the case, announced the change Monday.

Mills, who will oversee the case until a permanent judge is appointed, said he would probably grant the defense attorneys’ request to postpone the trial until March so they can have more time to prepare. The trial was scheduled to begin Jan. 8.

Mills declined, however, to indicate how he would rule on a request by the defense that the state pay for additional attorneys to help Olson sort through evidence in the massive case because she is indigent.

Mills said he did not have enough information about Olson’s financial status to make such a determination. He asked her attorneys to provide him with further details.

The state of California is already paying Shawn S. Chapman, one of Olson’s two attorneys.

The prosecution plans to argue against hiring more attorneys at taxpayers’ expense, contending that Olson is hardly indigent.

Olson lives in a large home in an upper middle-class neighborhood of St. Paul, Minn., and is married to an emergency room doctor.

A hearing is set next Monday to discuss the requests for a trial delay and additional legal help.

Olson, also known as Kathleen Soliah, was arrested in June 1999 near her home after being a fugitive for 24 years.

She is accused of trying to kill two LAPD officers in 1975 by placing bombs under two squad cars while she was a member of the SLA.

Olson contends that she was not a member of the small leftist group, started by a convicted felon in California after the Vietnam War.

The SLA, which hoped to launch a revolution, is best known for the kidnapping and subsequent conversion of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. Hearst, one of nearly 200 witnesses the prosecution plans to call in the case, is expected to testify that Olson joined the group to avenge the death of her best friend and was an active member until she vanished.