With Gag Lifted, Olson Still Wary

Sara Jane Olson, who recently marched through the streets of Minneapolis with duct tape over her mouth to protest a Los Angeles judge’s gag order, was freed on Friday to speak out about the 24-year-old bomb plot charges against her.

But she seemed to be at loss for words.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at what the judge’s decision was, so I don’t want to talk until I can consult with my attorneys,” she said Friday night, signing copies of her cookbook, “Serving Time: America’s Most Wanted Recipes” at a feminist book store in Oakland.

She added that she had found the gag order frustrating, and that it seemed to be directed more at controlling the defense than at the prosecution.

“My lawyers couldn’t speak, and now they can,” she said. “I’m in the midst of a very difficult case, with the possibility of a less-than-happy outcome. I need to not only rely on my lawyers, but they need to tell people what it’s important for them to know, from the defense’s point of view.”

Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman on Friday formally dropped the order that had silenced Olson--as well as all lawyers and witnesses--in the high-profile case scheduled for trial Jan. 8.

Olson, 53, is accused of scheming with members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army to kill Los Angeles police officers by planting pipe bombs under two squad cars in August 1975. Prosecutors say the bombs, which did not explode, were intended to avenge the deaths of six SLA members in a shootout with police the previous year.

It was the prosecution that had pushed for the gag, and in the end it was what Ideman called a flagrant violation by the prosecution’s star witness that led to its demise. Ideman, at a court hearing Wednesday, said he was unable to enforce the gag against Patricia Hearst Shaw, whom the SLA kidnapped, then converted to membership.

Hearst spoke at length recently with Talk, a national magazine partly owned by her family’s publishing empire. Hearst avoided sanctions because the interview occurred at her Connecticut home--beyond the reach of the judge’s authority. And if he couldn’t stop Hearst from talking, Ideman decided, it was unfair to gag Olson and her defense team.

“Good cause appearing, the protective order . . . is hereby revoked,” Ideman wrote in a terse order. The judge denied the defense request for sanctions against Hearst, citing “lack of jurisdiction” and against Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, citing “lack of sufficient evidence” that Garcetti had intentionally violated the order.

Douglas E. Mirell, a 1st Amendment attorney, said that Ideman’s reversal “is in itself kind of a landmark decision.” Mirell said he could not recall a situation in which a judge dropped a gag order without first being instructed to by a higher court.

“I would hope that in future high-profile cases that this serves as an object lesson to prosecutors not to jump in and request that gag orders be imposed,” Mirell said. “They should be more confident in the ability of prospective jurors to put the publicity out of their minds and decide a case on the evidence.”

He said the gag order generated publicity for a case that, for now, otherwise might have faded from the public spotlight.

Garcetti had no comment, a spokeswoman said. Prosecutors Michael Latin and Eleanor Hunter also declined to comment.

Like Hearst, Garcetti also gave interviews in spite of the gag order--first issued in January then tightened in April. While Hearst had defied the order, Ideman found that Garcetti had simply forgotten about it.

Both made it clear in the interviews that they believed in Olson’s guilt. Hearst said she was speaking up because she was “fed up to the eyeballs” with the SLA’s endless legal saga and resented being dragged back into the case. Garcetti is locked in a tough race for reelection.

Legal analysts said Friday that Hearst appeared to be sending a clear signal to prosecutors that she is a most unwilling witness--and potentially an unpredictable one.

Not surprisingly, the rhetoric flowed from attorneys who suddenly found themselves free to talk for the first time in more than six months.

“We are pleased that the judge has revoked the gag order, but disappointed that the court lacked jurisdiction to sanction Ms. Hearst,” said Olson’s attorney, Shawn S. Chapman. “It goes without saying that Ms. Hearst’s violation of the gag order was deliberate and offensive.”

Chapman added that her client “has always maintained her innocence and continues to do so. She is looking forward to the day when she is vindicated of all charges and the truth in this case can be told.”

A former SLA leader and potential witness, William Harris, who now works as a private investigator in San Francisco, said: “Thanks for ungagging me, judge. I wasn’t particularly following it, but thanks anyway.”

Bradley Gage, an attorney representing former LAPD Officer James Bryan in a civil suit against Olson, said he was relieved the gag had been dropped.

Gage had bristled at Ideman’s criticism and a suggestion that he should have filed the civil case under seal.

“Now we will see justice,” Gage said. “The allegations are that Sara Jane Olson put a bomb under my client’s car, which is both a crime and tort. We have every right to see that she is punished to the full extent of the law, both civilly and criminally.”

Olson’s former attorney, Stuart Hanlon, observed, “It’s not a coincidence that Patty Hearst led to the dissolution of this illegal gag order. In her arrogance--the arrogance of the rich--she felt she could do anything she wanted.”

Hanlon maintained that the charges against Olson are politically motivated. A civic-minded mother of three, Olson is married to a doctor and lives in a comfortable neighborhood of St. Paul, Minn.

Prosecutors charge that Olson, then known as Kathleen Soliah, was a full-fledged member of the SLA. But Olson and her defense maintain that she was merely a sympathizer who helped hide the group after the shootout, in which her best friend was killed.

Hearst has described Olson as an eager SLA wannabe.

* Times correspondent Richard Chon in Oakland contributed to this story.