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Public Comment Period In MS/DOJ Battle
PacketMaster writes: "Somthing that I didn't know, and perhaps many others didn't know is that now this settlement by the federal government and some of the states will go back before the judge and be opened for a 60 day commentary period by the public as required by the Tunney Act (See Sec 5,USC Sec 16). This is a great opportunity for everyone to send in their intelligent and informed opinions on the matter. If some of the major developer groups (i.e. Samba) would put together a well-thought-out and easy-to-read commentary on their concerns, maybe we as a community can affect the process. See the ZDNet
article for more information." No forum for public comment is up yet (first, the proposed settlement must be published in the Federal Register), but should be in the near future.
seventh post homiez. props to the unemployed nexabit gang!
you really can call me earl too.
After publicly renouncing her guilty plea minutes after entering it in court last week, Sara Jane Olson restated the plea Tuesday to the satisfaction of the judge who had reprimanded her for the disavowal.
During a packed 45-minute hearing, Olson appeared shaken and needed a 10-minute meeting with her lawyers before she could answer Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler. But she still momentarily flashed her characteristic vehemence.
"Your honor, I want to make it clear I did not make those bombs, possess those bombs or place those bombs," said Olson, of St. Paul. "Under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty."
"You are indeed guilty?" Fidler asked.
"Yes."
Thus, for the second time in less than a week, Olson pleaded guilty to committing terrorist acts in 1975, a crime that could send her to prison for five years to the rest of her life.
Fidler had ordered Olson to restate her plea after she defiantly renounced it outside the courtroom last week.
In court Tuesday, Olson shook her head and her eyes briefly filled with tears as she sat facing the judge.
"You wish your plea to stand?" he asked again.
"All right," she mumbled.
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes."
Olson, a onetime radical fugitive turned St. Paul homemaker, had little to say after Fidler accepted the plea.
"I don't want to" talk, she said as she left the courthouse. "I'm done talkin'."
Prosecutors followed suit. "If they don't comment, neither do we," spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons told reporters. "It's a wrap, people."
Last week, Olson pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to use pipe bombs to blow up two Los Angeles police cruisers in 1975 under a plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to drop three other charges.
Minutes later, she stood before cameras and microphones and declared, "I pleaded to something of which I'm not guilty."
In court, she signed a statement saying, "She is pleading guilty because she is in truth and in fact guilty."
Not a 'way station'
Fidler made it clear Tuesday that he was furious about her declaration of innocence, noting that he had made it clear last week that she couldn't disavow her plea outside of court.
"A guilty plea is not a way station on the way to a press conference to declare your innocence," Fidler said. To ensure the integrity of the criminal justice system, "she must make a choice," he said. "She cannot have it both ways."
Tony Serra, one of Olson's lawyers, said that her "choice of words was inartful and imprecise." He said she should have said only what she said Tuesday, "that she did not, make, plant or physically possess those bombs."
She pleaded to aiding and abetting a conspiracy to plant the bombs by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a violent radical sect best remembered for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. Under California law, a defendant guilty of aiding and abetting a crime is considered a principal in the crime, even if there is no direct physical link to it, Fidler said.
Olson and her attorneys said she agreed to a plea bargain more than two years after being arrested near her St. Paul house because she believed she couldn't get a fair trial on charges of committing terrorism in the political climate after Sept. 11.
Fidler said he didn't buy that argument, which he said was made "without any factual support. No jurors were questioned, so there is no way of knowing what was on their minds."
But, in an interview Tuesday, Serra revived the argument to counter prosecutors' boast last week that they had an airtight case. "In this climate of opinion they had every right to be confident of winning," he said. "They milked the domestic terrorist angle since day one. Tragically, fortuitously for them, it bore fruit."
After Sept. 11, the government complex in downtown Los Angeles has been cordoned off with concrete crash barriers, metal detectors and armed guards.
The defense and prosecution wrangled over Olson's likely prison term. The two criminal counts that she pleaded guilty to carry a sentence of 10 years to life, to be served consecutively. Olson's attorneys said they think she can be paroled after serving five years and four months, "and we believe either directly or indirectly the prosecution will seek to influence the parole board," Serra said.
Assistant District Attorney Michael Latin said prosecutors don't agree with that interpretation, although he didn't say what argument he would make before the parole board. Fidler simply noted that both sides differ and that he wanted "Mrs. Olson to understand that none of this could work out the way she hopes it could work out."
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 7.
Olson remains free on $1million bail, raised by friends and supporters. She is scheduled to surrender to authorities Jan. 18. Under her plea agreement, she can serve her sentence in Minnesota, so she can be close to her family.
Her supporters were downcast about the resolution of the case. "I can't believe all of these reporters are here just to witness someone's misery," said Hadassa Gilbert, who spent months organizing support for Olson in Los Angeles.
Boy, are you ever in the wrong place...