Persecution Claim Angers Olson Judge

The Los Angeles Superior Court judge presiding over the trial of accused SLA bomb conspirator Sara Jane Olson told defense attorneys Monday he doesn’t want to hear another word--inside or outside the courtroom--about the case being a political prosecution.

Judge James M. Ideman set an Aug. 14 trial date for Olson, who was indicted in 1976 on charges that she plotted with other members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army to kill Los Angeles police officers by planting bombs under squad cars.

The judge refused to lift a gag order after prosecutors complained about comments that Olson and a defense attorney made at a fund-raiser last month in Minnesota.

The defense has portrayed Olson, an admitted SLA sympathizer, as the product of the turbulent politics of the times. The trial is likely to provide a history lesson on the SLA’s 23-month series of crimes: the slaying of Oakland schools chief Marcus Foster, the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, several bombings and attempted bombings, and several bank holdups, including one resulting in the shooting death of a customer.

Ideman made clear Monday that he will not allow the defense to portray Olson as the victim of a law enforcement conspiracy to silence old political dissidents.

Extending the gag order indefinitely, Ideman said he was disturbed to hear about the spin applied by Olson and a former lawyer at the fund-raiser that the trial amounts to the political prosecution of dissidents.

“The only issue in this case is that a very powerful bomb was placed under a car in front of a crowded restaurant,” Ideman said. “To keep drumming on this red herring of a political agenda against dissent is a matter that would not be admissible in court and would only serve to inflame the jury pool.”

Ideman told the defense that such actions would make him more inclined to enforce the gag order.

Prosecutors Eleanor Hunter and Michael Latin have opposed the defense’s request to lift or loosen the gag order. In court papers, the prosecutors claim that the defense has violated American Bar Assn. rules against pretrial comments regarding witnesses, plea negotiations, the quality of the physical evidence, opinions on Olson’s innocence, and information attorneys know would never be admissible in court.

A hearing on the gag order was set for March 21.

Olson’s new defense team--Susan Jordan, Henry J. Hall and Shawn Chapman--distanced themselves from the comments made at the fund-raiser by a former Olson lawyer, Stuart Hanlon.

Olson’s trial had been set to begin this month, but was delayed when Hanlon left the case for personal reasons. Ideman delayed the trial to give his replacement, Hall, time to prepare.

After the 1976 indictment, Olson was a fugitive until June, when she was arrested near her home in St. Paul, Minn., where she had married a doctor and become a churchgoing, cookie-baking mother of three. She is free on $1-million bail, much of it raised by her friends and members of her church.