Olson hearing in SLA case shrouded in secrecy

She said the defense has received 7,000 pages of new discovery, 2,700 pages within the past week.

"We want to discuss the changing nature of the case because of the latest discovery," she said. "... We would like to discuss how the defense has changed."

Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler, who expressed initial reluctance to keep the matter secret, emerged from a one-hour closed-door session and said he would be sealing the transcript of what was said.

The defense, he said, would be asking for a continuance of the April 30 trial date because it needs more time to deal with large amounts of evidence turned over to them.

"Whether the defense will get additional time, we will have to wait and see what develops with discovery," he said.

He said the defense also plans to file a motion to suppress some evidence and a motion regarding handwriting evidence.

Olson, who became a Minnesota doctor's wife and mother of three daughters during a quarter-century on the run, was arrested in June 1999 on a charge of attempting to murder policemen by planting bombs under police cars as a member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army. The bombs never went off. Olson has vowed she is innocent.

Details of the new developments in the case were shrouded in secrecy. Although prosecutors asked that the hearing be open they refused to disclose afterward what had been said in the judge's chambers.

Olson's newest lawyer, J. Tony Serra, who requested the hearing, failed to appear and sent in his place Stuart Hanlon, the lawyer who first represented Olson after her arrest and who stepped out of the case due to family obligations.

"There have been recent developments in discovery. I feel they are things we cannot discuss in public," Hanlon said.

Chapman, who has been handling the bulk of the defense work while Serra tries other cases in Northern California, asked for the hearing to be closed and the transcript of the talks sealed because the discussions were sensitive. The judge complied.

Fidler said he would keep the April 30 date on calendar for hearing motions and would rule later on a possible new trial date. A hearing also is set for March 30 on whether the Olson trial will be televised.

Fidler ruled last month that prosecutors would be permitted to present at least some of the SLA's history as potential evidence of conspiracy.

Prosecutors argued that Olson's alleged membership in the SLA made her part of the group's overall conspiracies even though they conceded she was not involved in its most notorious crimes -- the killing of Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster and the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.<