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The Dilemma of Sara Jane Olson

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Manipulating Olson's public image has been of paramount concern to the defense team. Press and media treatments, after all, can greatly influence potential jurors about whether or not a defendant is guilty as charged. The images of Olson as soccer mom and Olson as aging activist are aspects of her public relations packaging, which is not to say that her activism is not heartfelt or her soccer mom persona phony. People's personalities and motivations are complex, and sometimes unite opposites.

In an interview conducted well before the events of Sept. 11, Chapman said she wishes that Olson would concentrate more on projecting the soccer mom image and less on posing as the simmering firebrand from the '60s. Soccer moms, however, do not typically attract supporters willing to take second mortgages on their homes to provide bail. Nor is a white, upper-middle-class soccer mom likely to elicit tons of sympathy from a jury drawn from the impoverished inner city of L.A.

Chapman, who is liberal in her politics ( if "more conservative than Tony or Stuart"), spoke at a defense fund-raiser for Olson in Minneapolis last year. The organizers had screened Out, a film about Laura Whitehorn, who was convicted in 1985 for conspiring to bomb the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to protest police brutality and American foreign policy.

"Whitehorn was not an apologist," Chapman remembered. "She wanted to effect change. For the first time, I understood why Sara wants to speak out and not just bake cookies. I got it."

After Sept. 11, Chapman did not return telephone calls seeking further comment about the direction of the Olson defense, and whether it would change.

Two weeks ago -- that is to say, before the World Trade Center and Pentagon were bombed -- Olson granted SF Weekly an interview in Los Angeles, on the condition that a defense attorney be present. Also attending the session was Mary Sutton, the head of Olson's very active support group. Olson and Sutton have relocated to Southern California for the duration of the trial. Sutton will be organizing people to attend the trial, and demonstrations, too, if necessary. The political strategy of Olson's supporters has mirrored the defense strategy of her lawyers: The good intentions of a whole generation are on trial before the nation; the prosecution is politically motivated to make an example of Olson.

Dressed in a bright red blouse and red-patterned skirt, Olson, 54, presented an animated, if not quite confident, self. She has a quick sense of humor, though, and her laugh is catching.

Perhaps because she is a trained actress, she can freely improvise dramatic stories about her life as a mother, a wife, an activist. Olson was definitely not acting, though, when she said she is terribly frightened for her future.

If a jury believes that Olson joined the SLA knowing beforehand that the SLA committed violent crimes, it could judge her guilty by association. Her sentence would be seven to life. Olson is afraid that, as a convicted cop-hater, she would carry a "silent beef" against her inside the walls and never be paroled.

As of two weeks ago, the defense strategy was to seat a jury dominated by inner-city African-American women, who would, it was theorized, be inclined to acquit Olson because they despise the LAPD, which is perennially plagued by corruption and race scandals.

Even before last week's airplane bombings, Olson was not looking forward to weeks and weeks of testimony about the SLA's bloody deeds. "It's going to be horrible," she shuddered. "I feel assaulted by these charges." On the advice of her attorney, Olson declined to answer any questions about the SLA, Hearst, or the trial evidence.

Expressions of moral outrage bubble up easily in Olson, though. She feels strongly that the issues of abortion, feminism, racism, poverty, and the degradation of the environment are the big political issues of today, as they were in the '60s. "We are all interconnected, but not in control of our destiny," Olson said very carefully, almost parsing her words. "In small groups we can unite against the multinational groups."

On Sept. 17, the Sara Jane Olson Defense Fund Committee issued the following statement: "Sara Jane Olson and the Sara Jane Olson Defense Fund Committee abhor the violence and destruction that took place on September 11th. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. We sincerely hope that the answer to this disaster will not involve further violence against innocent people."

In a telephone interview last Thursday, Stuart Hanlon, speaking on behalf of the defense team representing Sara Jane Olson, said that, in light of the terrorist-inflicted horror that has changed the national psyche, Olson will be unable to receive a fair trial anywhere in the U.S. at any time in the near future. "The catastrophe has affected my own view of the world," Hanlon continued. "I, myself, would have been the best possible juror for Sara -- but I cannot get those images of the World Trade Center out of my head."

Hanlon said that the defense team had not made a formal decision, but will probably ask for a postponement of Olson's Oct. 15 trial date.

But Sandra Gibbons, a spokesperson for L.A. District Attorney Steve Cooley, said, "If a continuance was granted, that would be the ninth continuance. It's time for this case to go to trial; we have waited for 26 years. We will oppose a defense motion for a continuance, there is no doubt."

Gibbons noted that two days after the terrorist attack, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon denied a motion to postpone the trial of an Egyptian man accused of killing an Orange County boy. But on Tuesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the judge reversed his position after many prospective jurors said they were too angry to be fair to an Arab.

Peter Arenella, a professor of criminal law at the UCLA School of Law, says that in the wake of last Tuesday's attack, Olson may get the postponement she seeks, but the delay cannot be indefinite. "The obvious concern is that jurors who were not alive when the alleged crimes were committed would lump Olson into the modern terrorist context, which would prejudice her right to a fair trial," Arenella says. "There are safeguards that can be used by the judge to ensure the jurors do not come in with an agenda and bias, although it is impossible to get at the heart of a juror.

"Since the defendant is not a menace to anyone now, wisdom would suggest delay. The problem for the trail judge is how long a delay. The idea that because the country is at war defendants cannot get a fair trial is something that the criminal justice system will not accept."

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