In Face of ‘Flagrant’ Defiance, Judge May Lift Olson Case Gag

A Superior Court judge, upset by what he called “flagrant” defiance of his attempt to control spinning in the Sara Jane Olson bomb plot case, sent strong signals Wednesday that he will lift his gag order rather than try to enforce it.

Judge James M. Ideman said in court Wednesday that he was sorry he couldn’t haul star prosecution witness Patty Hearst Shaw into his courtroom to hold her in contempt for ignoring his order. He indicated that instead he will probably lift the gag within days and “unleash” Olson’s defense.

Because Hearst lives in Connecticut, Ideman said, she appears to be beyond the reach of his authority.

Prosecutors Michael Latin and Eleanor Hunter had ardently supported the gag. But they were left with little to say in its defense after their boss, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, and Hearst recently discussed the case in the media.

“We’re not about to argue,” Latin said.

Olson, on the other hand, recently canceled a radio appearance during which she had planned to make artichoke dip to plug her fund-raiser cookbook, “America’s Most Wanted Recipes.” Although the radio spot seemed harmless, Olson’s handlers said they did not want to risk violating the gag order and upsetting the judge.

Defense attorney J. Tony Serra argued Wednesday that Hearst has shown disrespect for the court. He sought the ultimate sanction--prohibiting her testimony at trial. “You shouldn’t allow a witness, who is arrogant and holds herself above the law, to slap us in the face,” Serra said. “If an eye offends thee, pluck it out.”

Ideman seemed more likely to abandon his efforts to keep everyone connected with the case in check. He said that if he could not apply the gag order equally, he would have no choice but to dissolve it.

“The evil which I sought to prevent was publicity that would violate the rights of all parties to an impartial jury,” Ideman said. “But worse is a situation where one side can talk and the other side can’t.”

Unlike the other witnesses, the judge pointed out, Hearst is heir to a publishing empire, giving her “clout” and “unparalleled access to the media.”

She also is a media magnet in a case that promises to rekindle memories of one of California’s most sensational crime stories.

If Ideman does ungag the parties, it would be the first time in recent memory that a Los Angeles judge has done so without orders from a higher court, legal observers and 1st Amendment experts said.

Olson’s defense attorneys, Serra and Shawn S. Chapman, sought sanctions at Wednesday’s hearing against Hearst, Garcetti, and police witness James Bryan for a cluster of alleged violations of the gag order.

Ideman gave Garcetti the benefit of the doubt, accepting the district attorney’s explanation that he forgot about the gag order when he talked about the case on a public radio station. And Ideman said Bryan and his lawyer, Breadley Gage, could not be sanctioned for publicly filing a civil lawsuit against Olson.

As for Hearst, the judge said he was “upset” by her interview in the June issue of Talk magazine. “If I could sanction her now, I would. This is the most blatant violation of the order that has come along,” the judge said.

Ideman said he was “surprised and disappointed” to see that Hearst discussed Olson and “other sensitive matters” relating to the case in a national magazine. He said the interview was given in clear defiance of his order barring participants from discussing the case. And, the judge said, he believes Hearst “deliberately defied the order in a way to give maximum publicity to the violation.”

Ideman first issued an informal gag order in January. In April, he issued a sweeping order barring anyone connected with the case from discussing it anywhere in the world. The order even prohibited the parties from discussing the gag or any of the judge’s other rulings.

Hearst was 19 when she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. She eventually joined the group and participated in a series of bank robberies and other crimes. Her 1976 trial was a media spectacle, and she was convicted of bank robbery and spent more than two years in prison before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.

Nearly a quarter-century later, Olson, 53, formerly known as Kathleen Ann Soliah, stands accused of conspiring with SLA members to blow up police cars--and the officers in them--in Los Angeles during the summer of 1975. She was indicted by a grand jury in Los Angeles in 1976, and eluded capture until last year. She is free on $1 million bail. Her trial, postponed several times, is scheduled to begin in January.

According to court documents, Hearst sat down in February with Talk, which is partly owned by her family’s media empire.

“I was disturbed by the content of the interview,” Ideman said, pointing out that Hearst apparently spoke out because she was angered by what Olson’s former lawyers and a potential defense witness--now dead--had said about her.

Before he died, Jack Scott, who had helped Hearst elude a nationwide police search, claimed that she told him she had staged her notorious 1975 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army to break off an unhappy engagement.

Hearst merely wanted to rebut Scott, her attorney, George Martinez, said in a letter to the judge.

“If being angry and upset by the proceedings in this court is reason to violate the protective order, then everybody would be in violation,” Ideman responded. Hearst told the magazine that she was “fed up to the eyeballs” with the SLA and the endless court trials. “I keep trying to forget these people. And they keep dragging me back into it!” She griped, “It’s really not Kathy Soliah’s trial. It has turned into my trial. And I’m not going to play dead anymore.”