Olson Attorneys Making Case to Quit Her Defense

Attorneys for alleged Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson said Thursday that they will ask to be removed from her conspiracy case as a result of their being charged with misdemeanor offenses for work done on her behalf.

“We believe legally we have been prodded into a position where there’s a conflict of interest between us and our client,” one of her attorneys, Tony Serra of San Francisco, said at a hearing Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Serra pleaded not guilty earlier in the day at an arraignment on charges filed two weeks ago by the city attorney’s office alleging that he and co-counsel Shawn Chapman violated state law in November by allegedly placing the addresses and phone numbers of two police officers in a court document. The arraignment for Chapman was postponed until next Friday.

Olson, 54, is charged with conspiring in 1975 to kill two Los Angeles police officers by placing bombs under two squad cars. The bombs did not detonate. The two officers, one of whom has since left the LAPD, are the ones whose personal information was placed in the court filing.

In addition to seeking their own removal, Serra and Chapman told Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler that they will request that Deputy Dist. Attys. Eleanor Hunter and Michael Latin be taken off the case, and questioned whether any Los Angeles County Superior Court judge could fairly preside over the long-delayed trial.

Serra said Hunter and Latin have a conflict of interest because the city attorney’s office has listed them as potential witnesses in the misdemeanor case.

Serra said he also believes Superior Court judges would have trouble being impartial in the Olson case given the fact that their colleague, Superior Court Judge James Ideman, who was the previous judge in the case, is listed as a potential witness in the misdemeanor prosecution.

Fidler told the defense attorneys to file a written motion by May 29. He scheduled oral arguments on the issue for June 4. Fidler said he would wait until after the issue is resolved to schedule pretrial motions. A California appeals court has delayed the Olson trial, which was expected to begin this month, until September. It has been continued five times since Olson was arrested in June 1999 after more than two decades in hiding.

Thursday marked the 27th anniversary of the infamous shootout between the SLA, a radical 1970s group, and the LAPD.

The day began with attorneys for Olson attending their own arraignment with their own attorneys. Serra and Chapman, both charged with three misdemeanors, took different approaches.

Serra, through his attorney, Bruce Margolin, entered a not guilty plea and indicated he wanted a speedy trial. Serra said he would not waive his right to go to trial within 45 days.

Chapman, meanwhile, had her arraignment postponed so she can attempt to have the charges dropped. Chapman’s attorney, Dean Masserman, contends she had nothing to do with drafting the motion. Serra’s office wrote and filed it, he said.

Indeed, Ideman, the former judge in the case, acknowledged at a Dec. 1 hearing that Chapman was not aware that the personal information was placed in the court motion.

Masserman said the city attorney’s office didn’t bother to obtain the transcript of the hearing before filing the charges.

“She’s factually innocent of the charges,” Masserman said. “They should be dismissed outright.”

Serra said he and Chapman are being unfairly targeted by the city attorney’s office, which he maintains has never prosecuted a lawyer for such a crime before.

“[This prosecution] is an attack not only on the lawyers--we have thick skins--it’s an attack on Sara Jane Olson,” Serra said. “They did it to taint her, to hurt her, to deprive her of her lawyers.”

Mike Qualls, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office, would not reveal whether it is considering dropping charges against Chapman.

Qualls denied accusations by Serra that his office and the district attorney’s office are engaged in a conspiracy to damage Olson’s right to a fair trial. He said it was a coincidence that charges were filed against Serra and Chapman two weeks ago--just days before the Olson case was scheduled to go to trial.

“To suggest that we were somehow involved in something like this is ridiculous and insulting,” Qualls said. “We receive cases from regulatory agencies; it’s reviewed by deputy city attorneys. If they determine there’s sufficient criminal evidence, the case is filed. [The timing] had nothing to do with the Olson case.”