LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three decades after the Symbionese Liberation Army burst into the headlines with the violent abduction of Patty Hearst, a California parole board has been told to reconsider the sentence of a former SLA member in a related case.

The center of the legal dispute is Sara Jane Olson, a housewife who lived in anonymity for 24 years before an episode of "America's Most Wanted" led police to her door in St. Paul, Minn.

A Sacramento judge ruled Monday that the California Board of Prison Terms "abused its discretion" by extending Olson's sentence to 14 years without independent analysis. He threw out the sentence and ordered further action.

The board's spokesman said Tuesday they would consult with the state attorney general and decide on their next move.

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Olson was originally sentenced to five years, four months when she pleaded guilty in 2001 to taking part in two attempts to bomb Los Angeles Police Department cars in 1975. She is serving a separate six-year sentence for her role in a Sacramento bank robbery in which a woman was killed.

The case is part of a sequel to the radical group's past, the law catching up with members who had blended back into America when they were belatedly sent to prison.

Olson's friends, family and lawyers said the ruling by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Thomas Cecil is good news and could portend Olson's release from prison in a few years.

"It means that she is going to be coming home sooner. That's the best part," said Mary Ellen Kaluza, a longtime friend of Olson's and co-chairwoman of Olson's defense committee.

"The law clearly is on our side and it always has been," said Olson's lawyer, Shawn Chapman. "We understood it was a political case and it involved police officers. But there was no way anyone could show that Sara Jane Olson was a present danger to society."

But prosecutors who have lobbied to keep Olson in jail for a long time disagree.

"All this does is send the matter back to the parole board to make a record," said Los Angeles district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

In his ruling, Cecil suggested that the board had merely rubber stamped a recommendation by prosecutors.

He ordered a new hearing within 60 days but board spokesman Tip Kendall said the next step in the process is not certain.

"The Board of Prison Terms and the attorney general will get together and determine what the next course of action should be," Kendall said.

Chapman said Tuesday she hopes that Olson's sentence in the bomb case will revert to the original five years, four months.

In the bank robbery case, Cecil had urged the Board of Prison Terms not to extend sentences for Olson and three other former SLA members.

"We recognize the seriousness of the crimes that occurred in 1975," the judge said then. "We need not guess whether these defendants will function in society. We have seen it."

In his ruling Monday, Cecil said the California Board of Prison Terms "abused its discretion by adopting the district attorney's recommendation without independent evaluation." He said the legislature had instructed that protecting the public from future violence was the paramount consideration.

Los Angeles prosecutors Michael Latin and Eleanor Hunter pressed the board to increase Olson's sentence to 14 years, a recommendation the board accepted in October 2002, saying Olson's 1975 crimes had the potential for great violence and targeted multiple victims. The three-member board cited Olson's later flight and 25 years as a fugitive.

The bombs were planted under two police cars, but failed to explode. Prosecutors said Olson was attempting to retaliate for the deaths of six SLA members who were killed in a shootout with police the previous year.