Prosecutors Seek to Cite SLA Violence

Prosecutors on Monday urged a state appeals court to allow them to use the violent history of a notorious 1970s radical group, the Symbionese Liberation Army, during the bomb-plot trial of a former associate.

Attorneys for Minnesota housewife Sara Jane Olson last month asked the 2nd District Court of Appeal to exclude evidence of crimes attributed to the SLA that occurred before Olson became associated with the group.

The defense contends that testimony about the SLA’s violent background would confuse and prejudice jurors. They accused prosecutors of trying to “salvage” a weak case by putting the SLA’s entire history on trial.

The disputed crimes, about two dozen of them, include the murder of an African American school superintendent in Oakland, the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst and several bank robberies.

But prosecutors, responding Monday, said Hearst is expected to be a key witness at Olson’s trial, which is scheduled to begin in January. The evidence of other SLA crimes is needed to corroborate Hearst’s story, Deputy Dist. Attys. George M. Palmer and Patrick D. Moran wrote in a 25-page brief.

Olson, then known by her given name, Kathleen Ann Soliah, was accused in a 1976 Los Angeles grand jury indictment of participating in an SLA conspiracy to kill police officers by planting nail-packed pipe bombs under two squad cars in 1975. She was arrested in Minnesota last June.

The bombs did not detonate, and no one was hurt. But prosecutors argued in their court papers: “The crime was part of a wider conspiracy by the SLA members to commit what they considered to be revolutionary acts against government in general and the police in particular.”

Hearst was 19 when she was kidnapped by the SLA in February 1974. She later joined the group and was convicted in a bank robbery. She has expressed reluctance to relive her SLA experience by testifying at the Olson trial.

Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman ruled in January that prosecutors could introduce evidence of about two dozen crimes attributed to the SLA. The defense asked the appellate court to overturn that decision.

In their court papers, prosecutors argued: “Rather than interfere before trial with the court’s evidentiary rulings, such issues should be addressed later, in a defense appeal, if the defendant is convicted.”