Berkeley attorney for SLA members, medical pot growers dies in plane crash { Susan B. Jordan }

Oakland Tribune ^ | 6/2/9 | Kristin Bender

[SmithL]

Susan B. Jordan, a prominent attorney known for her work defending women charged with violent crimes, and who is credited with the creation of the battered spouse defense, was killed Friday in a plane crash in Utah.

She was 67.

Jordan, who split her time between homes in Berkeley and Ukiah in Mendocino County, formerly had a law office in Berkeley, and since 1972 had run a law practice in Ukiah.

Jordan had been a licensed pilot since 1981, but longtime friend and professional colleague Ann Moorman said she was not flying the plane when it went down. Health care executive John Austin, 64, of Boulder, Utah, and Oakland, also died in the crash, which occurred when the two-seater Stork airplane hit power lines near Escalante in the southern part of the state, said Becki Bronson, a spokeswoman for the Garfield County Sheriff's Department.

During her nearly 40 years practicing law, Jordan represented medical marijuana growers, former Symbionese Liberation Army members Sara Jane Olson and Bill and Emily Harris as well as Judi Bari of Earth First, and members of the Black Panther Party during politically charged grand jury investigations.

Even while litigating high-profile cases, Moorman said Jordan always remained grounded in her passion as a criminal defender. Jordan once described herself in an interview as "your basic all-purpose criminal lawyer representing jewel thieves, bank robbers, prostitutes and murderers, to name a few."

"She was a crusader," said her legal assistant Sharon Frazier. "She had a suit of armor that the military would crave. She could be very tough, but she was also a very kind and compassionate person, as well."

[pray4liberty]

Does anybody besides me see the Hand of God behind these events? When it rains, it pours.

[trumandogz]

No.

[al baby]

No I don’t either

[Fred]

She was a legend in her own mind.

[Reverend Wright]

This woman’s priority for the Obama Administration was medical marijuana.

http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/what-happened-to-obama-and-medical-marijuana-part-1/

Wasn’t Ukiah where Jim Jones was before he went to South America?

[DoughtyOne]

During her nearly 40 years practicing law, Jordan represented medical marijuana growers, former Symbionese Liberation Army members Sara Jane Olson and Bill and Emily Harris as well as Judi Bari of Earth First, and members of the Black Panther Party during politically charged grand jury investigations.

Oui vey...

[DoughtyOne]

I’m not sure. He started out in San Francisco, but may have spent time there before heading to South America.

[hinckley buzzard]

The air in America's courtrooms is a mite clearer today. And a degree or two more temperate.

[Randy Larsen]

No tears from me...

[pray4liberty]

Okay....how about the hand of sabotage? Why wasn't she flying her own plane? Who was flying it?

As a Black Panther lawyer, she must have known a lot of inconvenient things.

[DejaJude]

I had an in-law that died just this way. It was horrible, only dental records could identify the body. The pilot was sued and the family won a judgment against him.

[dalereed]

No loss!!!

[trumandogz]

First, without defense attorneys that will defend the worst offenders, the system falls apart very quickly.

Second, she did nothing to deserve death, but accidents do happen just as occurred to that Air France plane over the Atlantic that killed 230 people.

Would you like to go over the manifest of those on board that Air France Flight and tell us who on that plane deserved to die?

[NormsRevenge]

tough but compassionate

RIP Susan.

[pray4liberty]

You completely missed the point about my post.

[Amerigomag]

The Pazmany PL-9 Stork is a 3/4 replica of the Fieseler F-156 Storch with the same flying and handling characteristics as the original German Aircraft. The PL-9 Stork is a professionally designed STOL aircraft. It has a well-proven aircraft configuration designed for a number of functions such as fish spotting, forest fire detection, farm work, missionary work, etc. It features a welded chrome alloy steel tube fuselage and aluminim sheet metal/fabric covered wings and empenage. The PL-9 Stork has a cruise speed of 104 mph with a standard Lyc. O-320/150 hp engine.

[ETL]

"The Symbionese Liberation Army (S.L.A.) was an American self-styled urban guerrilla warfare group active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself a revolutionary vanguard army [ie communist revolutionaries/terrorists like the Weather Underground]. The group committed bank robberies, two murders and other acts of violence.

The S.L.A. became internationally notorious for kidnapping media heiress Patty Hearst, abducting the 19-year-old as she and her 26-year-old boyfriend, Steven Weed, sat relaxing in their Berkeley, California home."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
__________________________________________________

"The granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and great-granddaughter of self-made millionaire George Hearst, she gained notoriety in 1974 when, following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), she ultimately joined her captors in furthering their cause. Apprehended after having taken part in a bank robbery with other SLA members, Hearst was imprisoned for almost two years before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.[1] She was later granted a presidential pardon by President Bill Clinton in his last act as president.[2][1]"

Patty Hearst yelling commands at bank customers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Hearst
__________________________________________________

Soliah-Olson timeline: Radical, bank robber, mom, inmate
Last update: March 21, 2008

(snip)

May 1999: The TV show "America's Most Wanted" features Soliah. The FBI offers a $20,000 reward for her on the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles shootout.

June 16, 1999: Olson is arrested in St. Paul, where she and her family live in an ivy-covered house in the Highland Park neighborhood.

July 1999: Olson signs papers in St. Paul that acknowledge she is the SLA fugitive. She waives extradition and is sent to California to face charges in connection with the 1975 crime. After 35 days in jail, she returns home after being freed on $1 million bail, raised by friends and supporters.

August 1999: Olson legally changes her name from Kathleen Ann Soliah.

September 1999: Trial date set for Jan. 10, 2000.

October 1999: A judge rules that the history of the Symbionese Liberation Army is fair game for prosecutors seeking to convict Olson, saying past crimes attributed to the SLA would be relevant.

December 1999: Olson publishes a 100-page cookbook called "Serving Time: America's Most Wanted Recipes" to raise funds for her defense. She asks that her trial be televised.

May 2000: Trial delayed until Jan. 8, 2001. Patty Hearst violates judge's gag order in case, implicating Olson in a Sacramento-area bank robbery and murder.

July 2000: Judge lifts gag order in case. Olson begins speaking out in public, saying her trial will become a credibility contest between her and Hearst, slamming her prosecution as politically motivated.

January 2001: After President Clinton pardons Hearst, Olson asks district attorney to drop charges against her.

February 2001: Authorities in Sacramento, Calif., say they've reopened their investigation into a fatal 1975 bank robbery that they allege involved Olson and SLA members.

October 2001: Olson pleads guilty in the pipe bomb case, is later sentenced to 14 years in prison.

February 2003: Olson is sentenced to six years in prison for her role in the fatal bank robbery. The other defendants -- SLA cohorts Emily Montague, William Harris and Michael Bortin -- were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to eight years. In court, Jon Opsahl, the son of the woman killed during the robbery, called the four defendants "monsters" and "a group of pathetic, deranged revolutionaries who simply decided one day to make my mother [Myrna Opsahl] instantly and permanently expendable."

March 17 [2008]: Olson is [mistakenly released a year early...] from prison. [this timeline is from 2008, so doesn't include the latest -etl]

http://www.startribune.com/local/16892976.html?elr=KArks:DCiUoaW_eEO7UiacyKUUr
___________________________________________________

Sara Jane Olson and former fugitive Bernardine Dohrn chatted before Dohrn was to lead a panel discussion about conspiracy prosecutions of political activists in 2000.

Article:
http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/16944051.html

[RGSpincich]

Wasn’t Ukiah where Jim Jones was before he went to South America?

Sure was. Link

[ETL]

From Wikipedia, with references at site:

"In 1951, [Reverend Jim] Jones (Jonestown) began attending communist meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.[4] Jones became flustered at harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,[4] particularly, regarding meetings between Jones and his mother with Paul Robeson.[5] This, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones where he asked himself "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."[5][4]"

"In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 900 members of the People's Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after media pressure built.[25] Jones left the same night that an editor at New West magazine read Jones an article by Marshall Kilduff to be published detailing allegations by former Temple members.[25][16] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.

Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, 'I believe we’re the purest communists there are.' [26] Jones' wife, Marceline, described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally."[26] Jones wanted to construct a model community to show others and stated that Prime Minister of Guyana Forbes Burnham 'couldn’t rave enough about us, uh, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism.'[27] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist republics, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.[28]

Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid (often misidentified as Kool-Aid) along with a sedative.[39]

One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape.[39] When members apparently cried, Jones counseled "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity."[39] Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die" and, regarding death as "just stepping over into another plane" and that "[death is] a friend."[39] At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."[39] Children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together. The mass suicide had been discussed in simulated events called "White Nights" on a regular basis, while members drank liquid Jones first told them was poison during at least one of those White Nights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones