Attorneys Seek to Free Ex-Panther

Accusing Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti of playing politics with his review of Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt’s case, attorneys for Pratt filed court papers Monday seeking to overturn the former Black Panther Party leader’s murder conviction.

Pratt was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1972 for the death of teacher Caroline Olsen during a 1968 Santa Monica robbery that netted $18.

Pratt has been denied parole 13 times and has had all of his requests for a new trial denied, but his attorneys said Monday that the writ presents new evidence in their two-decade campaign to free him. They said it spells out allegations against prosecutors that have appeared in numerous news reports but never have been tested in court: how witnesses against Pratt lied, how evidence was suppressed and how the FBI role in framing Pratt was covered up.

Three years ago, Garcetti agreed to review Pratt’s conviction after crusading lay minister James McCloskey gave him a detailed report outlining evidence pointing to Pratt’s innocence.

Since then, complained Pratt’s lead attorney, Stuart Hanlon, “wars have started and ended, O.J. Simpson was arrested, tried and acquitted. But Gil Garcetti has refused to act in the case.”

Hanlon said that he has grown “tired of waiting on Mr. Garcetti to make an honest decision based on evidence and justice. His decision has been to avoid this case altogether.”

Garcetti treated McCloskey’s report “not as an attempt to find justice or the truth, [but] as a political thing he could play with,” said Hanlon, who was joined Monday by Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who represented Pratt at his original trial.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Garcetti, said Monday that McCloskey’s report is “still under review.” Once the district attorney’s report on the case is released, the public will understand why the review took so long, she said.

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McCloskey gained national attention in 1992 for winning the release of Clarence Chance and Benny Powell, two Los Angeles men who had served 17 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murdering a sheriff’s deputy.

Garcetti’s job, McCloskey said Monday, “requires strong decision making, and that’s what we’re asking him to do on behalf of Mr. Pratt.”

Also at Monday’s news conference were retired FBI Agent Wes Swearingen, who says the FBI framed Pratt, and Jeanne Hamilton, a juror who says she would never have voted to convict Pratt had she been aware of evidence that has come out since the trial.

Pratt was convicted of murdering Olsen and critically wounding her husband on a tennis court.

For the two-plus decades he has been in prison, Pratt has maintained that he was in Oakland attending Black Panther Party meetings when the murder occurred Dec. 18, 1968--and that the FBI knew that from its wiretaps.

The jury never knew that Olsen’s husband had identified three other suspects before naming Pratt, Hamilton said. Nor did the panel know that the FBI had targeted Pratt for “neutralization,” as documents uncovered after the trial revealed, she said.

“Mr. Pratt deserves to have all of the facts surrounding the case presented,” Hamilton said, fighting back tears. “Justice demands nothing less.

“Twenty-four years ago I was a responsible citizen who performed her duty as a jury member with a dedication to justice. I am merely hoping that someone within the system will perform their duty with the same dedication.”

Pratt was tied to the Olsen murder by Julius “Julio” Butler, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who had become a Panther and had risen through the ranks until Pratt expelled him from the party in 1969.

Butler denied during Pratt’s trial that he had ever been a police informant, but FBI documents obtained seven years later showed that he had provided information to the FBI and Los Angeles Police Department for more than two years before the trial.

Three jurors, including Hamilton, have told McCloskey they would never have convicted Pratt had they known Butler--now chairman of the board at Los Angeles’ First African Methodist Episcopal Church--was an informant.

Butler has refused to comment on the files showing that he had more than 30 contacts with FBI agents in the two years before Pratt’s trial, insisting that he stands by his original testimony. Pratt’s attorneys say they want to place him under oath and question him again about his involvement with the FBI.

Butler is the primary witness linking Pratt to the Olsen murder. He testified that Pratt confessed to him that he had killed the woman.

Pratt and Butler were rivals for leadership of the Los Angeles Panthers, McCloskey said Monday, and Pratt won. He stripped Butler of his official duties as chief of security and eventually expelled him from the party, McCloskey said. Five days after being expelled, Butler came forward with a letter implicating Pratt in the murder.

Butler “had the motive to frame and lie and falsely testify against an innocent man whom he personally loathed, and the FBI was a very convenient medium for him to do that,” McCloskey said. “They were looking for a way to ‘neutralize’ Pratt as well.”

Hanlon said Pratt “cannot be paroled because he won’t show remorse for a crime he did not commit. All he ever had to do was say: ‘I did it. I’m sorry.’ Geronimo has never said what the parole board wanted.”