Olson Defense Denied Look at Records of 1974 Shooting

The judge presiding over the trial of 1970s bomb-plot suspect Sara Jane Olson turned down a request Friday from defense attorneys for access to police documents, internal reports and other records related to a 1974 standoff with Los Angeles police that left six members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army dead.

As a result, Olson’s trial, scheduled to begin in January, is more likely to be a history lesson on the SLA than on the LAPD.

Defense attorney Shawn S. Chapman argued that the records would show that Olson, now 53, fled California 25 years ago because she feared police would kill her.

Prosecutors Michael Latin and Eleanor Hunter alleged that Olson’s flight demonstrates consciousness of guilt.

Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman ruled that the issue centers on Olson’s state of mind at the time she fled. As a result, he said, she has access to anything that was in the public domain, such as news reports. But internal police documents don’t qualify because she couldn’t possibly have known their contents, the judge said.

Chapman told the judge that the defense intends to rekindle for jurors the political climate of the turbulent 1970s. While some view the events at the SLA hide-out in South Los Angeles as a shootout, she said, “some people saw it as a homicide” by police and believed the SLA was targeted.

Olson is accused of conspiring with SLA members to kill police officers by blowing up their squad cars. Two nail-packed pipe bombs were planted the night of Aug. 20-21, 1975, but did not detonate.

Ideman also scheduled a hearing Nov. 17 on the defense’s request for personnel files of one of the police officers allegedly targeted in the SLA bombing attempt. Ideman said that if prosecutors call the former officer, James Bryan, as a witness, the defense is entitled to challenge his credibility because Bryan recently filed a civil suit against Olson.

Bryan says in his civil action that the bombing attempt left him unable to perform his job as an officer. But Ideman, who has reviewed Bryan’s file, said there is nothing there to support his claim that the bombing attempt caused his disability.

Meanwhile, the defense has petitioned the 2nd District state Court of Appeal to overturn Ideman’s ruling letting prosecutors present evidence of the SLA’s violent history--including crimes that occurred before Olson became affiliated with the group.