LOS ANGELES — The bombing trial of radical turned suburban mom Sara Jane Olson will go forward despite defense claims that the September 11 attacks will make it difficult to pick an impartial jury.

Judge Larry Fidler denied a defense motion Monday to continue the case until January, saying there was no proof that prospective jurors might be biased against Olson, accused of plotting to bomb police cars in 1975, because of the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York.

"At the present time, this is nothing more than speculation," said Fidler, who will begin pretrial hearings in the case next week.

He added that lawyers can question potential panelists about their views on the attack and he would reexamine his decision if there were problems finding fair jurors. This week, court officials will begin screening hundreds of potential panelists to find jurors who can serve the four to nine months the trial is expected to last.

Two other high-profile cases were postponed because of the September 11 attacks. An Egyptian man accused of killing a child in Orange County was delayed after 20 percent of potential jurors said they could not be fair because of the defendant's ethnicity. In Atlanta, a judge delayed the murder trial of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther known as H. Rap Brown. Lawyers for Al-Amin, a cleric who leads a black Muslim organization, said jurors might target him because of their anger over the terrorist attacks.

Prosecutors argued, however, that it is highly unlikely jurors would see any link with Olson. She faces life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Prosecutors allege that Olson, born Kathleen Soliah, joined the Symbionese Liberation Army, the radical group that kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, in 1974 and planted pipe bombs under two police cruisers in Los Angeles the following year to avenge the death of six SLA soldiers. The bombs did not detonate. She was a fugitive for 24 years before the FBI arrested her in St. Paul, Minn., where she had built a new life as a community-minded doctor's wife.

Olson maintains she had nothing to do with the bomb plots and was never a member of the SLA.

After the hearing, the 54-year-old said she had expected the judge's decision and was in some ways relieved to begin the trial.

"I have two older daughters who have had to continually change their plans," said Olson, who was accompanied to court by her teenage daughter, Sophie, parents and three siblings. "I'm prepared for it now."

Wearing a shiny silver suit and hot pink shirt, Olson stood out from supporters who came wearing peace sign buttons, sandals and flowing floral skirts. About a dozen supporters demonstrated outside the courthouse and later delivered to the district attorney's office a petition asking that charges be dropped.