THE STATE'S EVIDENCE

Prosecutors Latin and Hunter have acknowledged that winning a conviction against Olson for murder conspiracy will be difficult. After two and a half decades, memories have faded, evidence has disappeared and witnesses have died. For example, James Marshall, a plumbing supply store employee who said Olson bought pipe caps from him the day before the bomb attempt, died before her arrest, and the jury will not hear about his identification.

To strengthen their case, the prosecution plans to tell the jury about the entire disturbing history of the SLA. Scores of witnesses — from bystanders at bank robberies to the FBI agents who hunted the SLA — will recount their small part in the story.

It's an approach that has met strenuous objections by the defense.

"They just really want to taint her and tarnish her and make her look like she's this bad person because they say she hung around with these people who did these horrible things," said one of Olson's lawyers, Shawn Snider Chapman.

The prosecution will also call on forensic experts to testify that the bombs in Los Angeles matched wire, screws and other bomb-making components found in an SLA apartment in San Francisco. Police officers will testify that Olson's fingerprints were found in the apartment and on the door of the closet where the bomb supplies were kept. The prosecution also plans to show jurors a letter purportedly in Olson's handwriting requesting an order of 200 feet of fuse just two weeks before the attempted bombings.

Prosecutors hope the SLA witnesses and the forensic evidence will meld into one account corroborated by their star witness, Patty Hearst.

Hearst in 1983

Hearst served two years in prison for an SLA bank robbery. Her sentence was commuted by President Carter, and she was pardoned by President Clinton. Now a suburban mother like Olson, Hearst is expected to testify that Olson was deeply involved in the SLA after the shootout.

In her autobiography, Hearst claims Olson was inside the Carmichael bank during the robbery when another SLA member, Emily Harris, fired the fatal shot. Hearst also charges that Olson, Kilgore and Bill Harris went to L.A. in August 1975 intending to bomb a veteran's convention. They thought convention security had spotted them, however, and settled for placing two pipe bombs under police cars.

"Ms. Hearst will commit the ultimate sin, according to the manifesto of the SLA, by cooperating with the People and telling the truth about the SLA and their activities when she testifies," the prosecutors wrote. "Her testimony will undeniably be powerful evidence of the defendant's guilt."

The prosecution may also call former LAPD officer Jay Bryan, the only eyewitness to put Olson at the crime scene. Now retired and living in Missouri, Bryan says he remembers seeing Olson walk across the parking lot with two men moments before he and his partner unwittingly entered a bomb-rigged car.

"He remembers her face vividly because when she turned to look at him, he noticed a look of absolute 'contempt and hatred in her face,'" according to a police report.

But Bryan, who left the force because of the stress of the attempted bombing, didn't tell investigators about seeing Olson until November 1999, almost 25 years after the crime. When he gave the account to investigators, Olson's arrest had been widely covered in the media and Bryan was preparing a civil suit against her.

He acknowledges he never wrote a report about the woman in 1975 and never told the grand jury investigating the bomb plot about her, but he claims he told others at the time, including a sergeant at the scene and his partner. He says he even kept her wanted posted framed on the wall of his office during her two decades on the run.

"I thought about it all the time," he said.

THE DEFENSE

From the time she was arrested in her minivan, Olson has maintained she was never a member of the SLA and had nothing to do with the L.A. bombing plot. Her defense likes to pooh-pooh the prosecution, calling its case a "sinking ship" and deriding witnesses such as Bryan.

"It's a tie as to who is the least credible witness — him or Patty Hearst," Chapman said recently. She claims that the hard evidence they have proves only that Olson knew people in the SLA. Her fingerprints were among 10 sets found in the San Francisco apartment and, her lawyers contend, show only that she and many others were guests there.

But the defense has had more than its share of problems in preparing for trial. Two lawyers took the case only to drop it for personal reasons as the trial date approached. Olson's current team has repeatedly asked for continuances, saying it needs more time to sort through reams of prosecution evidence about the SLA. In March, one of her lawyers told a judge that a potentially damaging police report about fuses Olson allegedly bought languished for months in the defense's office before being flagged.

When they do go before a jury, her lawyers have two challenges: to convince a panel she had nothing to do with the Los Angeles bombs and to explain why, if innocent, she fled and lived as a fugitive for 24 years. To do that, they are expected to try first to chip away at the credibility of the key prosecution witnesses, Bryan and Hearst, and then to suggest that lawless behavior by police and FBI agents in the '70s made Olson believe she would never get a fair hearing and might actually be killed by authorities if caught.

Chapman, who describes Hearst as "ripe for destruction," says the defense will have little trouble undermining the heiress's account. History has shown that she is a bad witness, Chapman says. Hearst testified at her bank robbery trial in 1976, and the jury rejected her claims that she was coerced and threatened into joining the SLA. Hearst's testimony, the defense will argue to jurors, is suspect because she cooperated with authorities in hopes of securing a commutation and ultimately pardon. The defense plans to call acquaintances of Hearst from the '70s to refute her.

"Her cooperation was saying everybody else did bad stuff except me ... but there are a number of people who know that that was not the case," Chapman said.

Bryan's credibility is also in the defense's crosshairs. Olson's lawyers charge that he concocted his story to advance his civil suit after the testimony of Marshall — then the only eyewitness — was excluded. The defense also noted his stress disability and suggested he was mentally unfit to testify.

"Suddenly after Sara Jane Olson is captured and he files a civil lawsuit against her asking for millions of dollars then suddenly he remembers her face and would never forget it," said Chapman. "He would be a wonderful witness for the defense and I hope he's called."

In addition to discrediting the prosecution's key witnesses, Olson's defense is likely to point an accusatory finger at the LAPD, which after the recent Ramparts scandal has its own credibility problems in downtown Los Angeles where the case will be tried.

Olson's lawyers say she fled California in 1975 and changed her name not because she was guilty, but because she feared being killed at the hands of the police. To justify her fear "of government reprisal for her association with SLA members," Olson points to the 1974 Los Angeles shootout. The siege of the SLA safehouse was carried live on television, and the police were widely criticized for their handling of the standoff.

In court filings, Olson's defense team suggests at least two of the six who died were shot as they tried to flee a burning building and "the use of deadly force was unreasonable under the circumstances."

Atwood and the others, Olson contends, "were targeted for death by the LAPD." A key investigator in Olson's case was a sniper during the shootout, according to the defense, and Olson claims she feared the same fate.

"The thinking at that time was that if you were in any way associated with any group that speaks out or speaks differently that you are in danger," said Chapman.

The defense team says no decision has been made about whether Olson will testify in her own defense. With her acting background, Olson is comfortable speaking in public, and Chapman says she is eager to "declare her innocence from the rooftops."

"She wants to testify," Chapman said, "but we're going to wait and see."