CA - Sara Jane Olson/Kathleen Solia

You know what? This whole thing has been overblown. The police had a vendetta against her. She lived a good life for all those years and often police do decline to prosecute when much time has passed. There was a case recently like that.

What Sarah Olsen did is nothing compared to the war crimes of our President and Vice-President. I respect the police but don't worship them or feel they should be placed on a higher plane than anyone else.
Kidnapping, murders, and terrorist acts. Yeah, it was really nothing and she was treated unfairly, puh-lease. The police had a vendetta against her for good reason. She is not the victim here, she got way less than she deserved.
 
Peter Erlinder, a professor of law at William Mitchell College of Law who supported Olson after her arrest, said, "I don't think she was a great danger to begin with, and I don't think she is a great danger now. Her case was a replay of the political battles of the 1960s and 1970s, and the antiwar movement and her conviction was a reflection of those times."

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/16892696.html?page=2&c=y

I could not agree more.
 
I respectfully disagree. Asassinations, bombing, kidnapping, bank robbery, rape, and murder were part of the SLA agenda. If anyone "ran" with this gang they knew their secrets and plans and had a part in thier crimes. I met the man who was gunned down with Marcus Foster in Oakland. He was totally apolitical and Marcus Foster was the first African American supt. of schools. Most of the SLA agenda didn't make sense and innocent people were murdered and kidnapped. Kathleen Soliah participated in that bank robbery and murder. The victim was cut down over 20 years ago leaving behind a son and husband. This doesn't make her less dead because it was a sign of the times. Her life should not be trivialized. Kathleen Soliah went on to lead her life but she had participated in murder. The victim's life needed to be acknowledged by our justice system. As I remember an effective sign of the times were peaceful demonstrations and boycotts. If the government used excessive force there was a public outcry. That was a sign of the times. Violent fringe groups were not admired or helpful for positive change. The SLA turned people off and disappeared. Today I don't think Kathleen Soliah will kill again and she is a productive member of society. She's done her time. I was appalled that she was so angry for receiving jail time and people passed this off this murder as her naievtie. She spent a good amount of time with SLA members and knew their sectrets. Kathleen had plenty of time to grasp the violent ramifications of this group. Her daughters suffered because of her absence, but also they do not appear to understand the whole picture. They think that their mother got caught up in the sign of the times.
 
Kidnapping, murders, and terrorist acts. Yeah, it was really nothing and she was treated unfairly, puh-lease. The police had a vendetta against her for good reason. She is not the victim here, she got way less than she deserved.


Blackwater, Abu Graib, dirty water to our troops, rape of a 15 year old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family: these are also terrorism but because they are under the guise of "war" and the American flag, they are just collateral damage. I don't condone what Soliah did but I have the ability to put it in the proper perspective.
 
Just received this on my CNN Breaking News alert e-mail:

"Former SLA member Sarah Jane Olson was mistakenly freed a year early from prison Monday, and is back in custody."
 
LOS ANGELES - Former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sarah Jane Olson was detained at Los Angeles International Airport late Friday by state corrections officers as the paroled SLA member tried to fly back to her adopted home in Minnesota.

At a press conference on Saturday, an administrative error was blamed for her release.
Video

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23760469/
 
Blackwater, Abu Graib, dirty water to our troops, rape of a 15 year old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family: these are also terrorism but because they are under the guise of "war" and the American flag, they are just collateral damage. I don't condone what Soliah did but I have the ability to put it in the proper perspective.
I respect your opinion but none of us condone murder wherever it is committed and no matter under what guise it is. Murder, bombing, rape and robbery were actively carried out by the SLA over twenty years ago.Unfortunately it is still happening in Iraq.. I have no idea why we're discussing the Iraq War and all its horrible injustices and tragedy. I agree with you. I'm writing about the murder of two innocent people who were gunned down for nothing. One woman was just in the bank depositing the church collection. Their survivors were left to put it all in proper perspective. There were other victims too. With the passage of time the SLA victims were forgotten by the public. Years later when Kathleen Soliah got caught, she needed to accept her part in the murder. She was very angry when she had to serve jail time because in the years intervening she had been leading a praiseworthy life. Her supporters have defended her by blaming her youth and naivite but these were not impulsive decisions. She was in the organization for around two years and only left because the police were getting too close. I cannot dismiss the damage the SLA did here on the west coast and some of it occurred in my own neighborhood.
 

She is back in jail now until March 17 2009. Clerical error. I wonder if she knew it was an error? Most inmates would probably know their estimated release date.

>>The sentencing error was brought to light when reporters questioned corrections officials last week, Roldan said. The error was apparently made in 2004, when administrators did not add an extra year to Olson's sentence for the Sacramento crime, Roldan said<<

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/22/BA4QVOVJT.DTL
 
She is back in jail now until March 17 2009. Clerical error. I wonder if she knew it was an error? Most inmates would probably know their estimated release date.
Yep, she was taken into custody last night :)
 
Paybacks sure are a b*tch aren't they? It couldn't have happened to a better person...I could go on and on.
 
this is from the original article that 2sister posted less than a year ago. :

>>Today, Emily and Sophia take turns going out to Chowchilla to visit their mother about once a month. Olson is expected to be released in November 2009, and many friends from Minnesota remain loyal-passionately so.<<

ETA: shoot in thinking about it, we know that they get 1 day credit for every day they behave and work. So a 14 year sentence would result in 7 years incarceration and we all know she has been in for 6 years. How could they make such a huge mistake?
 
this is from the original article that 2sister posted less than a year ago. :

>>Today, Emily and Sophia take turns going out to Chowchilla to visit their mother about once a month. Olson is expected to be released in November 2009, and many friends from Minnesota remain loyal-passionately so.<<

ETA: shoot in thinking about it, we know that they get 1 day credit for every day they behave and work. So a 14 year sentence would result in 7 years incarceration and we all know she has been in for 6 years. How could they make such a huge mistake?
Wikipedia has already updated:

Mistaken release from prison
Olson was released from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla on parole March 17, 2008, only to be rearrested on March 21st. She had been mistakenly released a year early from prison due to a miscalculation by the parole board

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Soliah
 
They didn't "miscalculate" anything. The Los Angeles Police Protective League is very powerful and they put pressure on the DA to have her rearrested. She is no danger to anyone.
 
IMO, whether she's a present danger to anyone at the present time is beside the point.

And what's with this she's lived a good life and stayed out of trouble rally cry from her supporters? It's not like she lived some stellar and saintly life. She merely did what most of us law abiding citizens manage to do everyday without the incentive to stay under the radar because we are a felon and face major prison time. The entire time was spent as a wanted felon in hiding. Her living a life to avoid prison has been confused with her living a regular law abiding life. One that she didn't deserve by the way, because she should have been in prison.
 
Just received this on my CNN Breaking News alert e-mail:

"Former SLA member Sarah Jane Olson was mistakenly freed a year early from prison Monday, and is back in custody."

How can a clerical error have been made? My guess is that LE decided to find some way to keep her jailed.
 
okay I get it now after doing some research.
She was originally sentenced to 5 years 4 mos. That was then changed to 13 years. Then a judge reduced that to 12. IN 2004 2 more years were added back to the sentence but her parole was still calculated on the old 12 year term when it should have been recalculated at the 14 year term.


>>Olson's sentence was extended by two years in 2004, and that extension is still on appeal to the California Supreme Court, Nickerson said. If the court overturns the extension, it would mean that her parole would end immediately rather than in a year, he said.<<
http://www.startribune.com/local/16892696.html?page=2&c=y

>>After her guilty pleas, a judge sentenced her to five years and four months in prison. But the state parole board immediately classified her as a serious offender - one considered too dangerous for early release - and recalculated her term at 13 years. A judge later trimmed a year off her sentence, and with a 50 percent reduction for good behavior and work credits in prison, she was paroled Monday.
The department said Saturday it had neglected to add two years to Olson's sentence for the bank robbery and murder and that she should have received a 14-year term, with parole after seven years. <<

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/22/BA4QVOVJT.DTL
 
I heard an interview with Jon Opsahl talking about how in court the original judge was adamant that her terms be served consecutively not concurrently but that was changed at some point too:

>>Jon Opsahl, 48, who led the quest for justice in his mother's killing, recounted his understanding of Olson's jail time:
"Initially, Sara Jane Olson, known as Kathleen Soliah, was sentenced to a combined 20 years – 14 years for the attempted murders of the police officers in Los Angeles and six years for my mom's murder in Sacramento.
"Somewhere along the line, she evidently got the 14 years reduced to 12 and then somewhere along the line she got the six years to be served concurrently with the L.A. crime. And now to get time off for good behavior is just crazy. I count that she just served six years in prison."<<
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/804101.html
 
This was a very complicated sentencing it makes more sense to me now:

In 2001, Olson pleaded guilty to the attempted bombings. She later pleaded guilty in 2003 to second-degree murder in the 1975 shooting death of a customer during a bank robbery in Carmichael, near Sacramento. In all, she was serving 14 years in prison for both crimes
The clerical error that resulted in her release came from a failure to properly factor the Sacramento sentence into her parole calculations, Kernan said.
"This is an extremely unusual situation," the department's General Counsel Alberto Roldan said.
Roldan said the long period and changes in sentencing guidelines between Olson's crimes and her sentencing made the calculations especially difficult.
Asked repeatedly by reports at a news conference why the thorough review wasn't done until after Olson was released, Roldan said parole calculations are done when a person comes into prison rather than when they are released, and a "triggering event" such as a court motion is required to prompt such a review.
He said Olson's sentence had been reviewed several times, and there was no special reason to review her case at the time she was freed. Roldan said after the release, a reporter brought to the department's attention the Sacramento district attorney's office was concerned about the calculations.
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_8663338?nclick_check=1
 

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