RW ONLINE:The Punishment of Sara Jane Olson\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMerciless System Pursues 60s Radical\r\nThe Punishment of Sara Jane Olson\r\n<\/p>
Revolutionary Worker #1129, December 2, 2001<\/i>, posted at rwor.org \r\n<\/p>
On June 16, 1999, Sara Jane Olson was driving her minivan near her home in \r\nMinnesota, when it was surrounded by police and FBI agents. Sara Jane Olson was \r\narrested on a decades-old warrant--charged with having been a member of the \r\nSymbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in the 1970s and planting bombs under LAPD \r\npolice cars. <\/p>\r\n
The case of Sara Jane Olson hit the headlines. On October 31, Sara Jane Olson \r\npled guilty to two counts of attempting to explode a bomb with intent to \r\nmurder--and then stepped out of the courtroom and told the press she had pled \r\nguilty to something she did not do. She said she would be unjustly convicted in \r\ntoday's post-September 11 climate. <\/p>\r\n
On December 3, she returns to court to see if she will get any trial at \r\nall.<\/p>\r\n
The story of this case starts over 25 years ago.<\/p>\r\n
*****<\/p>\r\n
On May 16, 1974, police surrounded a modest home in the Black community of \r\nCompton, California. Inside were six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army \r\n(SLA). All day and night, as millions of people watched on TV, an army of LAPD, \r\nFBI, and California Highway Patrol poured gunfire into the house. Finally the \r\npolice set the place on fire and let it burn. No one inside survived.<\/p>\r\n
The SLA was a small radical organization formed in 1973 by Black former \r\nprisoners and a committee supporting the radical prison movement. The SLA \r\nemerged at a time when the revolutionary movement of the '60s was ebbing. There \r\nwas intense debate over revolutionary strategy--where Maoist revolutionaries \r\nargued that proletarian revolution would require a mass armed uprising of \r\nmillions; other trends argued for different forms of urban guerrilla warfare and \r\nsmall group armed actions; and some in the movement rejected armed struggle \r\naltogether.<\/p>\r\n
The SLA carried out a series of armed actions--including the highly \r\npublicized 1974 kidnapping of ruling class heiress Patty Hearst, forcing her \r\nfamily to distribute free food to poor people in California. The case made \r\nheadlines, especially after Hearst joined the SLA and participated in an armed \r\nbank robbery.<\/p>\r\n
After the merciless police massacre of SLA members in Compton, a protest and \r\nmemorial rally was held in Berkeley. A speaker at this rally was Kathleen \r\nSoliah, who spoke about her friendship with Angela Atwood, one of the SLA \r\nmembers murdered by the police. Kathleen had become active in the antiwar \r\nmovement and a supporter of the Black Liberation struggle while studying at UC \r\nSanta Barbara. After this speech, Kathleen Soliah became a target of the FBI. \r\n<\/p>\r\n
In August 1975, the LAPD said they found two unexploded, homemade bombs \r\nunderneath police cars. They accused the SLA of planting them in payback for the \r\nmassacre 15 months earlier. <\/p>\r\n
In September 1975, FBI agents arrested SLA members Bill and Emily Harris in \r\nSan Francisco. Patty Hearst and her roommate, Wendy Yoshimura, were also \r\narrested. The FBI were also looking for Kathleen Soliah and, when they didn't \r\nfind her, they put her on the top of the list of \"most wanted\" fugitives, \r\nclaiming she was a member of the SLA. <\/p>\r\n
Kathleen Soliah had escaped, gone underground and started a new life as Sara \r\nJane Olson. She settled into a middle class life in the Twin Cities suburbs of \r\nMinnesota, got married, raised kids and became involved in local amateur theater \r\nproductions. Even though her face remained plastered on post office walls, she \r\ndared to continue progressive activity. In the 1980s she participated in the \r\nmovement against South Africa's apartheid and became a volunteer at a political \r\nbookstore.<\/p>\r\n<\/b>
The Persecution of Sara Olson<\/p>\r\n<\/i>
\"The people who run this system are completely unforgiving.\"<\/p>\r\n
Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP<\/p>\r\n
Today in the current post 9-11 climate of \"anti-terrorist\" hysteria and \r\nrepression, the authorities are determined to make an example of Sara Jane Olson \r\nand lock her up for the rest of her life. <\/p>\r\n
Faced with possible life in prison, Sara Jane Olson has refused to renounce \r\nthe radical politics of the '60s. She points out that the authorities have \r\nlittle evidence to back the charges against her--and says she was neither a \r\nmember of the SLA nor involved in planting any bombs on police cars. <\/p>\r\n
Many of Sara Jane Olson's friends in Minnesota have publicly rallied to her \r\ndefense, helping to fund her legal costs, and traveling to California to stand \r\nby her side. There have been support events in the Twin Cities, L.A., the Bay \r\nArea and San Diego. In Los Angeles, the National Lawyers Guild has supported \r\nher. <\/p>\r\n
In the press, this case has been twisted to serve the post-September 11 \r\nclimate of: \"be fearful and suspicious of everyone.\" The SLA is portrayed as \"a \r\nterrorist <\/i>cell\"--and Sara Olson offered as proof that \"terrorists\" could \r\nbe living right next to you, even in an affluent Midwestern suburb. Her case is \r\noften paired with denunciations of Bill Ayers, who recently wrote a memoir of \r\nhis days in the Weather Underground in the '60s-'70s. One headline declared: \r\n\"End to Tolerance for Unrepentant '60s Radicals.\"<\/p>\r\n
Sara Olson has said she doesn't expect any kind of \"fair trial\" in such a \r\nclimate. A relentless prosecution of Sara Olson is being carried out by the \r\ncourt system and her case has become a full-blown railroad.<\/p>\r\n<\/b>
Flimsy Evidence in a 26-Year-Old Case<\/p>\r\n
After the police arrested Emily and Bill Harris in 1975, they carried out an \r\nillegal search of their apartment--without a warrant. Police claimed they found \r\nbomb-making materials in a locked closet, similar to the devices found under \r\nLAPD cars. And they claimed their spies had seen Kathleen Soliah visiting that \r\napartment. There is no evidence that Soliah lived there or knew what was in its \r\nclosets. <\/p>\r\n
One of the pieces of evidence used to link Kathleen Soliah to the alleged \r\nbombs is the claim by police that a clerk said she bought a pipe. But this clerk \r\ntold Soliah's father that the cops told him exactly who to identify. <\/p>\r\n
A government witness against Olson is Patty Hearst, who was expected to \r\ntestify that Olson was a member of the SLA. But Patty Hearst, who renounced the \r\nSLA in exchange for a presidential pardon, herself admits that she is not a \r\ncredible witness.<\/p>\r\n
Wendy Yoshimura's diary said Olson was not in LA the day the bombs were \r\nplanted, but that journal has \"disappeared\" from police evidence lockers. <\/p>\r\n
In short, the authorities have little evidence and their case is full of \r\nsuspicious police tactics. <\/p>\r\n<\/b>
Courtroom Injustice<\/p>\r\n
The authorities tried to strengthen their case against Sara Jane Olson by \r\nadding accusations of \"conspiracy\" to the bombing charges. Charging \"conspiracy\" \r\nmeans authorities can introduce evidence of things done by \"co-conspirators.\" \r\nJim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild calls this an attempt to infect the \r\njury with information that Sara Jane Olson had nothing to do with--including \r\nactions that took place even before the time that the cops say Olson joined the \r\nSLA. <\/p>\r\n
After September 11, the judge hearing this case said he would allow \r\ndescriptions of alleged \"terrorist acts\" as a justification for the illegal \r\nsearches the police carried out in this case.<\/p>\r\n
Prosecutors have withheld evidence and documents from the defense. But they \r\nhave also worked to whip up the climate around this case. Sara Olson's two lead \r\nattorneys, Shawn Chapman and Tony Serra, posted dozens of court documents on the \r\ndefense website--to expose the injustice of this case. The addresses of two cops \r\nwere in the document. The authorities cynically charged this web posting was a \r\nplot to endanger those cops. Sara Olson's lawyers were arrested and proceedings \r\nwere held by the State Bar. Though all charges were dropped, this contributed to \r\nthe railroad atmosphere around this case. <\/p>\r\n<\/b>
Sentence Without Trial?<\/p>\r\n
On October 31, Sara Olson pled guilty, then stepped out of the courtroom and \r\ntold the press she was not guilty but had accepted a plea bargain because she \r\nhad no hopes of justice in this climate. The judge freaked out and ordered Sara \r\nJane Olson back into court for a special hearing that the press called \r\n\"unprecedented.\" He said she could not be allowed to plead guilty in court and \r\nthen claim innocence in public. He said that \"public confidence\" in the judicial \r\nsystem demanded that she retract her public claims of innocence.<\/p>\r\n
Since then, Sara Jane Olson has filed new motions demanding to withdraw her \r\nguilty plea and go to trial. In court papers she said, \"After deeper reflection, \r\nI realize I cannot plead guilty when I know I am not.\" She added, \"I am not \r\nsecond-guessing my decision as much as I have found the courage to take what I \r\nknow is the honest course.\" <\/p>\r\n
While this was all going on, Sara Olson participated in a Los Angeles protest \r\nagainst the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\r\n
*****<\/p>\r\n
The case of Sara Jane Olson is now at a crucial point. On December 3, a judge \r\nwill decide whether Sara Jane Olson has a right to the public jury trial she is \r\ndemanding. If she is refused a trial, she is expected to be sentenced, without \r\ntrial, to 20 years to life. The District Attorney is already saying that Sara's \r\n\"lack of remorse\" will be seen as grounds for denying parole. <\/p>\r\n
The authorities have dredged up this case to portray the resistance movements \r\nof the '60s and '70s as criminal and \"terrorist.\" They are persecuting Sara Jane \r\nOlson for her politics then and for her stand now. It is an attempt to impose \r\nunjust verdicts on the past and on the future.<\/p>\r\n
\r\n<\/p>
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker \r\nOnline
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