Kenneth Rosenfeld
The name Sara Jane Olson—once Kathleen Ann Soliah—used to cause headlines back in the 1970s. She was one of the members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing revolutionary organization whose notoriety peaked when the group kidnapped the heiress Patty Hearst. Olson was also the suspected participant in a terrorist bank robbery and bombing plots on Los Angeles Police Department vehicles. By the time the federal government indicted her in 1976, she was gone, having eluded capture for more than two decades.
When Olson was arrested in 1999, the defense was left to Kenneth Rosenfeld, a California criminal defense lawyer who had a specialty in controversial, high-profile cases, such as the defense of NFL Player Dana Stubblefield whose conviction was overturned when the prosecution had proceeded in violation of the California Racial Justice Act of 2020. In the Olson case, the odds were different but no less daunting: She was facing two consecutive terms of 10-years-to-life, a potential 20-year jail sentence.
Rosenfeld came to the case with both legal technicality and strategic sensibility. He knew that the courtroom was just one stage on which Olson’s fate would be argued. The history of the SLA and the violent crimes that had taken place under its banner had taken hold on the public imagination, and the coverage seemed destined to produce a trial as much in fact as public perception. Rosenfeld’s challenge was that the law, not outrage, should be the determiner.
Central to his strategy was a careful contextualization of Olson’s actions. She had been young and impressionable when she joined the SLA, a period when extremist groups actively sought recruits who were vulnerable to ideological influence. While she bore responsibility for her crimes, Rosenfeld argued that she had also been manipulated by circumstances beyond her control. This framing did not excuse her actions, but it placed them within a mitigation framework that courts recognize: Understanding the personal and psychological factors that influence behavior can inform both sentencing and public perception.
Rosenfeld also attempted to distance legal verdicts from feelings of revulsion. Because the crimes were unusually newsworthy, the people on the jury panel as well as the general public had the potential to blur the defendant with the atrocities that she was accused of committing. By highlighting the humanity of Olson and framing her decisions in the larger history and psychology, Rosenfeld hoped the court would evaluate evidence on an objective basis and have verdicts that were informed by the rational, rather than the emotional.
The outcome was a plea bargain that lowered Olson’s sentence from the possible 20 years to 14, which she spent seven years on before she was paroled in 2009. Back she went to Minnesota, living with the family, a life very different from the radicalism of her younger days. For Rosenfeld, the case was evidence of the indispensable part defense counsel play in making the legal system work as planned, even under the brightest spotlight.
The case demonstrated the general rule that defense in a criminal case is not just acquittal or conviction, but rather justice as a process. Defense is not just the mastery of procedure and law, but also the ability to deal with the social and psychological aspects of the case. Rosenfeld’s defense was just that combination: technical competence and subtle appreciation that the defendant was a human being, not just a collection of facts, and that the process had to reflect that, too. Olson’s narrative—and Rosenfeld’s involvement in it—are reminders that American criminal law will always experience tension between public feeling and the fairness of procedure. These are reminders that all defendants, even those charged with serious and high-profile crimes, have a right to forceful and upright representation. By wise advocacy, strategic foresight, and regard for human context, Rosenfeld was able to turn a case that could have concluded with a life-changing sentence into a narrative of accountability.
