Olson’s Request to Change Guilty Plea to Be Heard

Sara Jane Olson today hopes to persuade a Los Angeles judge to disregard her guilty plea on 1975 attempted bombing charges as an accused member of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

If Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler lets Olson withdraw the plea, the long-running case will go to trial. If he does not, she is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.

Olson claims she is innocent and pleaded guilty Oct. 31 out of fear that jurors might not treat her fairly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Her attorney, Tony Serra, says he talked his client into a plea agreement with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

But prosecutors want the plea to stand, maintaining that Olson was fully aware of the consequences of a guilty plea--a possible life sentence in state prison. They say they want Olson to take the witness stand in today’s unusual hearing so they can question her about why she changed her mind.

“Contrived protestations of innocence voiced after fully informed, voluntary pleas of guilt are not valid grounds for withdrawal of a plea,” prosecutors Michael Latin and Eleanor Hunter wrote in court papers filed Thursday.

The Olson case has produced several surprises since the 1970s radical walked into the courtroom on Halloween morning and pleaded guilty to attempting to bomb two LAPD cars in an effort to kill police officers. Immediately after that court hearing, Olson--who had been arrested in 1999 after more than two decades on the lam--walked into the hallway and publicly denied her guilt.

An irritated Judge Fidler called Olson and the attorneys back into court Nov. 6 to reprimand her and make sure she wanted to maintain the plea. In a tense hearing, Olson continued to deny that she possessed or planted bombs but said, “Under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty.”

“Because you are, in fact, guilty?” Fidler asked.

“Yes,” Olson responded.

But the following week, the 54-year-old Minnesota resident filed a motion to withdraw her plea. She said in court documents that she could not plead guilty when she knew she was innocent.

“Cowardice prevented me from doing what I knew I should: throw caution aside and move forward to trial,” Olson wrote.

Attorneys on both sides filed new documents in court ahead of today’s hearing.

Serra filed a motion last week taking the blame for Olson’s flip-flops. He wrote that he urged his client to plead guilty for two reasons. First, he was worried that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would prevent Olson--labeled a domestic terrorist--from receiving a fair trial. Second, he did not think prosecutors would push for a life sentence.

If her guilty plea stands, Olson will be sentenced Friday to 20 years to life in prison. Her attorneys believe she will be ordered to serve just over five years. But they acknowledge that the state Board of Prison Terms could extend that time to life.

Serra said Olson was hesitant and equivocal when she entered the plea, and that he took responsibility for “creating conditions in her mind that amounted to psychological duress, in regard to pleading guilty.”

Defense attorney Shawn Chapman said that, despite her statements to the judge, Olson never felt comfortable with the guilty plea.

“She has always maintained her innocence and she has always wanted to go to trial,” Chapman said.

Prosecutors, who have said repeatedly that they are ready to go to trial, argue that Olson was not forced to do anything. She had a chance to withdraw her plea at the hearing Nov. 6, they said.

“She was given every opportunity in the world by Judge Fidler . . . to reverse her plea, and she did not,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office. “It’s like the court system is some personal toy that she can play with.”