SACRAMENTO, CA - Those who argue for a smaller government do not neglect to press the state to perform legitimate functions such as the prosecution of criminals. In California’s capital, there is currently much room for improvement, as a national case shows.

On June 16, 1999, the FBI arrested Sara Jane Olson, wife of a wealthy Minnesota doctor. Olson had been identified through an “America’s Most Wanted” program as Kathleen Soliah, a fugitive since 1975 wanted on charges of possessing a destructive device with intent to commit murder. Soliah was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), the group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst and assassinated Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster. Soliah joined the group after it had been denounced, even by many radicals, as a murderous criminal gang.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles charge that, in revenge for a shoot-out in which six SLA members died, Soliah slipped two bombs under a police car. Olson/Soliah will still stand trial on the charge in April. Many are baffled that she is not being prosecuted for another act.

On April 21, 1975, four SLA members held up the Crocker Bank in Carmichael, near Sacramento. One of the robbers shotgunned to death Myrna Opsahl, a 42-year-old mother of four who had arrived to deposit church funds. Various accounts of this crime, including one by Patricia Hearst, who was in one of the getaway cars, name the four robbers as James Kilgore, still a fugitive wanted on explosives charges; Bill Harris, Emily Harris; who Hearst says gunned down Mrs. Opsahl, and Kathleen Ann Soliah.

Evidence techniques have greatly improved since 1975 and the police can reportedly now tie the SLA to the heist through ballistics and some of the money they stole. A palm print of Kathleen Soliah was found in a garage rented by the SLA. Hearst’s account comes on top of this and other evidence but Sacramento District Attorney Jan Scully, a Republican, calls the case “not prosecutable.”

This baffles Jon Opsahl, who was 15 when the SLA murdered his mother, and Trygve Opsahl, a doctor who rushed to the operating room to find that his wife had already died. The younger Opsahl is convinced that in the early going the authorities botched the case and now decline to prosecute to avoid embarrassment. They note that Sacramento has refused to prosecute even though the Los Angeles district attorney’s office has repeatedly urged them to do so, and offered to take the case themselves.

Meanwhile, Olson/Soliah, out on $1 million bail and living with her wealthy doctor husband in an exclusive St. Paul neighborhood, is unrepentant and portrays herself as the victim. Olson/Soliah has received support from state Democrats in Minnesota, the Berkeley city council, and the United Methodist Church. By their standards, being a ‘60s radical demands special treatment and the refusal to prosecute seems to grant that demand.

The Opsahl family has every right to consider this case as one of justice denied, something voters might want to keep in mind. As for the do-nothing local prosecutors, they should take a cue from the Super Bowl. When there is an infraction, the game doesn’t carry on until the penalty has been marked off.

- K. Lloyd Billingsley