Support Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt's release by faxing, calling or writing the office of:
Gil Garcetti
Los Angeles District Attorney
210 West Temple
Los Angeles. CA 90012
phone: 213-974-3511
fax: 213-974-1484
Tell the District Attorney to not pursue a reindictment and a new trial against Geronimo ji jaga Pratt!
LOS ANGELES (AP) 05-29-97 - A judge granted a new trial for Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt on Thursday, capping a 25-year legal battle by lawyers who said his murder conviction was political retribution against the Black Panthers.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey ruled that Pratt's 1972 conviction was heavily influenced by the testimony of an informant whose infiltration of the Black Panther party was unknown at the time of Pratt's trial.
He added that the prosecution wrongly suppressed information about the informant, Julius "Julio" Butler, which could have swayed jurors in a different direction.
Pratt was convicted of the December 1968 slaying of Santa Monica schoolteacher Caroline Olsen. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison and has been turned down for parole 16 times.
Pratt maintained from the beginning he was not in Los Angeles when the killing occurred but was in Oakland at Black Panther party headquarters.
Dickey ordered Pratt released from state prison and placed in the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff for a new trial "or other appropriate disposition.'
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, which had opposed a retrial, issued a brief statement saying no decision had been made on whether to appeal.
In a 13-page decision, Dickey concluded that "the evidence which was withheld about Julius Butler and his activities could have put the whole case in a different light, and failure to timely disclose it undermines confidence in the verdict."
The decision came after a hearing that had been seen as the end of the legal line for Pratt.
"This is perhaps our last and best chance to right a wrong," attorney Johnnie Cochran told the judge in March when he argued for a new trial. Cochran, who gained fame in the O.J. Simpson trial, had represented Pratt at that 1972 trial as well.
District attorney's appellate counsel Harry Sondheim argued that Pratt was convicted on overwhelming evidence and said his conviction should be upheld, adding that Pratt was a street thug.
Cochran responded by recounting Pratt's military service in Vietnam, his being awarded a Purple Heart and his later studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The hearing was prompted by discovery of documents confirming that Butler, the chief witness against Pratt, was a police and FBI informant who infiltrated the Black Panthers.
Cochran said Butler was "a conniving snake" "a lying perjurer," "a pathological liar," and "a con man" who lied when he said that Pratt had confessed to the murder.
"If we seem a little more emotional than usual, it is because this is our life's work," he said of the crusade he and San Francisco attorney Stuart Hanlon have pursued on Pratt's behalf. "I will not stop practicing law until he is free."
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