Appeals Court Orders Judge to Delay Olson Trial

In a highly unusual move, a California appeals court has ordered the trial of alleged Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson delayed until September unless a judge in the case can convince it otherwise.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal issued its 2-1 decision late Tuesday after Olson’s attorneys turned to the panel for relief when efforts for a fifth delay in the case were rebuffed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler.

In its decision, the panel ordered Fidler to delay the trial until Sept. 2 unless he appears before it next month and convinces them the trial should begin.

Trial proceedings in the case had been scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. today.

Defense attorneys Shawn Chapman and Tony Serra complained that they needed more time and resources to adequately defend Olson, who is charged with conspiring to kill two Los Angeles police officers in 1975 by placing bombs under two squad cars. The bombs did not detonate.

Olson, who was arrested in June 1999 after more than two decades in hiding, faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

Court of Appeal Judges Candace D. Cooper and Kathryn D. Todd voted in favor of the delay, finding that Fidler had abused his discretion by refusing. Judge Roger W. Boren disagreed.

Constitutional law professor Erwin Chemerinsky at USC called Tuesday’s decision “extremely unusual.”

“Usually the scheduling of trials is left to the discretion of the trial judge,” Chemerinsky said. “Rarely will the Court of Appeal get involved in scheduling matters. The court has to be really persuaded that the judge is abusing his discretion as to when to grant continuances and when not.”

Fidler scheduled pretrial hearings in the case for April 30. The hearings were supposed to be followed by jury selection.

But at the April 30 hearing, Serra and Chapman announced that, at the risk of being cited for contempt of court, they would not go forward. They said the district attorney’s office had inundated them with last-minute evidence and they didn’t have enough time to review it.

They also complained that Fidler was making their job even tougher by scrutinizing defense costs. Olson has been declared indigent, and her defense so far has cost taxpayers at least $500,000.

Fidler refused to delay the trial, but he did grant a nine-day stay to give the attorneys time to appeal his decision. That appeal was filed Monday.

Serra and Chapman couldn’t be reached for comment. Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said, “Whatever we have to say about this we’ll say in court.”

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Times staff writer Edward J. Boyer contributed to this story