Our Tops Off to Liana Johnsson

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-topless28jan28,1,5561437.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Nothing Can Top This Crusading Attorney's Latest Cause
A Ventura County public defender known as a patron saint of longshots and lost causes is leading a campaign to let women bare their breasts at state parks and beaches.
By Fred Alvarez
Times Staff Writer

January 28, 2005

Liana Johnsson doesn't mean to cause trouble. But she's not exactly the kind to tolerate injustice.

So the veteran Ventura County public defender fights hard for her indigent clients, railing against a system that jails the homeless for being drunk in public or for snatching shopping carts to haul around their belongings. She is known for efforts to help addicts find their way into treatment programs and straighten out their lives.

In 11 years with the public defender's office, she has become known as a passionate advocate for the poor and underserved, a patron saint of longshots and lost causes.

Her latest crusade has reached the state Capitol as she leads a campaign to allow women to go topless at California parks and beaches, seeking to end what she calls the last criminal sanction that treats women differently from men.

"I'm not a troublemaker. It's just sometimes I know I'm right," said Johnsson, 42, who won't say whether she wants to bare her breasts but believes she should have the right to do so.

"I have a desire to be equal to men," she said. "The Constitution tells me that everybody is created equal. Unfortunately, I read that part."

...............As a result, lawyers have asked the state Legislature to abolish the topless sunbathing ban, and Johnsson hopes to soon launch a letter-writing campaign to persuade lawmakers to take up the cause.

"She's looked at places where women do sunbathe nude on the beach, and lo and behold, kids are not traumatized and society has not fallen apart," said Tina Rasnow, coordinator of Ventura County Superior Court's self-help legal access center. "Her advocacy for women goes into everything she does. It's the way she lives her life."