Olson’s Lawyer Asks to Quit Case

Torn between his passion to defend SLA fugitive Sara Jane Olson and his duty to his sons, who lost their mother to leukemia in 1997, defense attorney Stuart Hanlon asked a judge on Friday to let him off the case.

In court papers, Hanlon, who lives in San Francisco, said he can’t spend six months away from his boys. He cited a recent court ruling extending the scope and length of the trial, as well as what he complained was prosecutors’ foot-dragging in turning over key evidence, as reasons for withdrawing.

Hanlon said he agreed to defend Olson, accused of conspiring to plant pipe bombs under police cars, in what he thought would be a six- to eight-week trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. Instead, he wound up in the middle of an expanded conspiracy case that would take months to try and include evidence of about 20 crimes: two murders, a kidnapping, several bank robberies and a series of bombings.

“I simply did not believe that the court would allow the present case to turn into a political drama in which the entire history of the [Symbionese Liberation Army] would become relevant,” Hanlon said in his court papers.

The lawyer said his sons, 8 and 12, need him at home, especially during the summer.

“My No. 1 concern since the death of my wife has been to make sure that I am always there for my children--physically, emotionally and intellectually,” Hanlon said in his court papers. “The bottom line is that my children need me to be available as much as possible to them, especially at an age where one of them is beginning adolescence.”

Olson, a mother of three, understands, he said in court papers.

Olson, 52, is accused in a 1976 grand jury indictment of plotting with members of the SLA, a 1970s guerrilla group, to blow up police cars in Los Angeles during the summer of 1975. During 23 years as a fugitive, she built a respectable life as a doctor’s wife active in her church and community. She is free on $1-million bail.

Hanlon’s departure deals a major blow to the defense, which must now seek a postponement of the Feb. 7 trial date to regroup. In court papers, co-counsel Susan B. Jordan said she needs at least a month to find another lawyer of Hanlon’s caliber to work with her. She asked the court to delay the trial until September.

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At a hearing Monday, Superior Court Judge James Ideman ruled that prosecutors can bring in extensive evidence concerning the SLA’s violent, 22-month history--including crimes with which Olson has not been charged. Such evidence is needed, Ideman said, to corroborate the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, SLA kidnap victim-turned-comrade Patricia Hearst Shaw.

Hanlon stated in his court papers that, in his 25 years of practicing law, “I have never been faced with a case that even comes close to the magnitude of the present one.”

He has handled several high-profile cases, including those of SLA leaders William and Emily Harris and former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt. His wife, attorney Kathleen Ryan, worked on the Pratt case as well until she was diagnosed with leukemia in January 1997. Pratt was released from prison in June of that year. She died a month after his release.

The judge is expected to rule Tuesday on Hanlon’s request.