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The Dilemma of Sara Jane Olson

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Serra's North Beach office is decorated with the memorabilia of a lifetime, including a fading poster of a seven-headed cobra, the SLA logo. The aging hippie wears his white locks long. He giggled while brandishing a prescription card that entitles him to buy marijuana for medical use, even though, he said, he is not ill.

Serra is not a frivolous person, though. He once served six months in federal prison for being a tax resister. He is a good man to have on your side if you are in deep trouble with the law. The actor James Woods played him in the 1989 film True Believer, about a tricky murder case in San Francisco that Serra and Hanlon won.

"The Olson case is the last large criminal trial of the '60s; part of my destiny," Serra said. "What's sad about it is that the SLA doesn't represent the '60s, they weren't popular."

Admitting that Olson was intimately associated with the SLA, Serra contended the prosecution is using this fact to inflame the jury against her. Then he grinned, sharklike.

"I anticipate cross-examining Patricia Hearst with great relish," he said. "She's filled with contradiction, filled with self-motivation. She's under the domination of law enforcement. She seeks always to be approved by [male] authority images. That's her personality defect, which borders on a psychiatric condition."

Serra went on to denounce the misuse of state and federal conspiracy laws designed to trap the "Mr. Bigs" of drug dealing and other organized crime. People do not realize, he mused, that these same laws can be used for political ends, for repression of people's rights.

"Conspiracy charges are on the rise. In the last 25 years, law enforcement in this country has grown extremely powerful. We have more secret police than the KGB in Russia. We have a sea of informants out there: reliable informants, confidential informants, participatory informants, percipient informants, material informants, leniency informants, paid informants, arrested informants, sources-of-information informants, anonymous informants. We may be moving toward a totalitarian state."

Serra's sonorous voice bounced off the walls.

"Our basic freedoms have shrunk as a consequence of the strength of law enforcement, and therefore, this is a case that they will never give up. They want to fry her. She represents the SLA, and the SLA represented domestic terrorism, and terrorism is the emotional logo behind which law enforcement gains resources and power."

Serra summarized his basic belief about the system of law in a capitalist society.

"We are brainwashed into believing that the law is equally applied; the same for the rich as for the poor. I say law serves the dominating class; law is to keep the have-nots in that category. The majority of people in this country are not civilized and not sophisticated. The litmus test of civilization is the death penalty.

"I still believe in the jury system, though," he said. "The jury might see [the Olson prosecution] as political, ideological warfare, and we may get the benefit of the doubt."

But that was what Serra said about the Olson case before the tragic events of Sept. 11. Subsequently, he did not return phone calls requesting further comment.

People on the street still ask Shawn Chapman, "Don't I know you?" In 1995, hundreds of millions of people watched as the Los Angeles attorney helped her boss, attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., convince a Los Angeles jury not to trust circumstantial evidence in the trial of Orenthal James Simpson. Chapman, 38, frequently appears as a legal commentator on national television news programs. She is a partner in a Beverly Hills law firm. She is a serious person, but she also sparkles with good humor, and is of an entirely different generation than most of the Olson defense team.

Chapman was in grade school when SLA members were incinerated in L.A. She is, however, more entrenched on the front line of the legal battle than her co-counsel. Serra, as is his habit, will not immerse himself in the details of the case until right before opening day -- a habit that appears to have concerned Chapman. Last December, according to a motion filed by the L.A. district attorney, Chapman told Superior Court Judge James Ideman that Serra "has done nothing to prepare for trial ... [and] does not speak to her and refuses to return her calls." Serra also missed three court appearances in a row, leaving Chapman in the lurch.

Last fall, Serra made a small mistake that had serious consequences. He filed a motion that contained the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of two former Los Angeles police officers who are on the prosecution's witness list. Due to a series of clerical errors, the privileged information ended up being posted on the Sara Jane Olson Defense Fund Committee Web site. The error was corrected within a week. Eight months later, Serra and Chapman were charged with a misdemeanor for revealing the information. Prosecutors Michael A. Latin and Eleanor J. Hunter (who both declined to comment for this story) had a field day in court, comparing the "tactics" of the defense lawyers to the SLA's cop-killing agenda.

The charges against Chapman were dropped as meritless. In July, Serra paid $5,000 to a police benevolent society in return for dismissal of the charge against him -- but not before he and one of the retired police officers shouted insults at each other in open court. The incident shocked several members of the defense team.

Chapman, who is paid by the court, has been on the case for more than two years. She supervises a team of paralegals, investigators, and forensic experts who review evidence as it is turned over to them by the district attorney. One senses that she is more than ready to take charge when the trial begins, although Serra, who is working for free, clearly intends to be the star in the televised courtroom drama.

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