<html>
<body>
<h1><b>Parole board to reconsider ex-SLA member's
sentence</b></h1><font size=2><b>By Linda Deutsch<br><br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>LOS ANGELES - </b>A California parole board said
Monday it will hold a new "serious offender hearing" for former
Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson in response to a
judge's order overturning the 14-year prison sentence imposed by the
board last year.<br><br>
Superior Court Judge Thomas Cecil ruled last week that the state Board of
Prison Terms "abused its discretion" by extending Olson's
prison term without providing independent analysis of its
decision.<br><br>
He suggested that the board merely rubber-stamped a recommendation by Los
Angeles prosecutors who asked for Olson to serve added prison time for
two attempted bombings in the 1970s.<br><br>
Board spokesman Tip Kindel said the hearing will take place Sept. 7 at
the women's prison in Chowchilla, where Olson has been incarcerated since
2002. She is also serving a separate six-year sentence for her role in a
1975 Sacramento bank robbery in which a woman was killed.<br><br>
Olson's lawyer, Shawn Chapman, has said she hopes that Olson's sentence
in the bomb case will revert to the original five years and four months
imposed when she pleaded guilty in 2001 to taking part in two attempts to
bomb Los Angeles police cars in 1975.<br><br>
Los Angeles County district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said
prosecutors will attend the hearing and will make substantially the same
presentation they made previously.<br><br>
"We will ask for the same amount of time," she said.<br><br>
Two former police officers who were the intended victims of the attempted
bombings will be at the hearing, Gibbons said.<br><br>
Olson had been a fugitive since her radical days of the 1970s, eventually
settling in St. Paul, Minn., and changing her name from Kathleen Soliah
to Sara Jane Olson. She married a doctor and lived quietly until 1999,
when the television show "America's Most Wanted" featured the
case in a broadcast.<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3><a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>