Sara Jane Saga Ends--We Hope

Many thanks to Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who on Monday had the good sense to finally cancel the Sara Jane Olson Show.

It was beginning to play like a dated, really annoying television series, complete with a famed lefty attorney who missed an important court date because of a bad karma day.

As a Californian, you sort of had an obligation to follow the drama, since it promised a full museum tour of 1970s radicals, including a look at some of the biggest nut jobs in state history.

Former soldiers of the Symbionese Liberation Army were expected to make appearances, as was Patty Hearst, sans beret. And then there was Olson herself, the revolutionary-turned-soccer mom who was on the lam for 20-some years.

But I’d rather have my entire wardrobe tie-dyed, or perhaps even get my hair permed, than suffer another minute of Olson’s midlife crisis.

Oh, the sighs, the whys, the puppy dog eyes. Let’s get Sally Field to cry a river in the movie version.

Yeah, sure, we all regret some of the things we did in our youth. But most of us did not allegedly order fuses for nail-packed bombs, cruise L.A. in search of targets, or stand before a crowd to salute SLA assassins.

Being a soccer mom in Minnesota is just not penance enough.

Bear with me now, as I review Olson’s journey to justice:

In June of 1999, she’s collared in St. Paul, Minn. They charge her with attempting to blow some L.A. police officers to kingdom come in 1975, and of course she pleads not guilty.

Then, this Oct. 31, her trial approaching, she cops to the deed and pleads guilty.

Ten minutes later, in the hall outside the courtroom, she has a change of heart and tells reporters she’s innocent.

One week later, she goes back to court and tells the judge she’s guilty.

Another week passes, and she decides she’s innocent again.

Can you imagine ordering a pizza with this woman?

She ended up back before Judge Fidler on Monday, hoping to have her guilty plea withdrawn, arguing that big-shot attorney Tony Serra had bullied her into the plea. She was ready to bomb the pigs, but women’s lib passed her by, apparently leaving her no choice but to have a man decide her fate.

But as the parties gathered in court, Serra was off the reservation. He faxed a communique to Judge Fidler explaining that his karma was off, causing him to miss his flight from Oakland.

“Therefore,” Serra wrote, “in a state of mind of dank frustration, I went home and went back to bed.”

Must be nice to still be living in the Age of Aquarius.

Sandi Gibbons, the D.A.’s flack, said she’d never heard of a stunt like this. “I checked with a lot of attorneys around here,” she said, “and they hadn’t either.”

Judge Fidler’s karma was just fine Monday. Having presided over this case with the patience of Buddha, he finally told Olson and her whole sorry crew to get lost, ruling that her guilty plea will stand.

I called Serra’s office Tuesday to see if we might expect an appeal, but the receptionist said she wasn’t sure he’d be in.

Is he having another bad karma day? I asked.

“He could be,” she said.

I’ll be sure to send him a get-well card.

It’s been well-documented, by the way, that at the bottom rungs of the criminal justice system, the wrongly accused sometimes plead guilty because the evidence against them is juiced or because their attorneys have sold them out.

Olson is not in that group. She’s guilty, and her attorneys know it. And yet while innocent people rot, here’s this gang of lefty flameouts wasting the court’s time with this nonsense, using every trick they can muster to catch a break for a Minneapolis mother married to a doctor.

Olson, who could get between 20 years and life, has been working under the assumption that she can have it whittled down to five years. Her attorneys have argued that she didn’t participate in any bombing attempts; she only gave money to the SLA and rented cars for them.

I can think of one way for her to earn a break:

In 1975, two years after murdering the Oakland schools chief for no apparent reason, the SLA is believed to have robbed a Carmichael bank. A woman named Myrna Opsahl, who was depositing her church collection that day, was shot dead.

So you want some slack, Sara Jane? Then give up whatever you might know about who killed Myrna Opsahl.

Otherwise, quit the flip-flops, stifle the whine and do the time.

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Steve Lopez writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.