Pratt’s Request for New Trial Has Merit, Judge Says

Imprisoned former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt has raised “some very substantial issues” in his request for a new murder trial, and his case “has a lot of merit,” a Los Angeles Superior Court judge said Thursday.

But Judge Malcolm W. Cowell made it clear that he does not believe state law gives him jurisdiction over Pratt’s petition, in which Pratt contends he was framed two decades ago by the FBI.

Nevertheless, Cowell’s comments on new evidence presented by Pratt’s attorneys were the most encouraging remarks the lawyers have heard from a judge since Pratt was convicted in 1972 of shooting a schoolteacher to death on a Santa Monica tennis court during a 1968 robbery that netted $18.

Pratt has maintained from the outset that he was in Oakland attending Black Panther Party meetings when the shooting occurred. He has been denied parole 14 times, and four previous requests for new trials were turned down.

But in recent years, a retired FBI agent has testified that the bureau knew Pratt was in Oakland, yet framed him as part of COINTELPRO, the FBI’s counterintelligence program that targeted both moderate and radical organizations.

Nearly 50 demonstrators paraded in a light rain outside the downtown Criminal Courts Building on Thursday, waving placards and shouting chants callin for Pratt’s release.

Demand for seats in Cowell’s courtroom was so great that court officials had to allocate seats to ensure that Pratt’s relatives would get in.

Pratt, who was brought to Los Angeles from Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento, smiled broadly and mouthed greetings to friends and well-wishers after he entered the courtroom.

One supporter was Jeanne Hamilton, one of the jurors who convicted Pratt in 1972, who was seeing Pratt for the first time since his original trial.

“I was so excited to get into the courtroom,” said Hamilton, who now believes that she helped send an innocent man to prison for life. After one of Pratt’s lawyers pointed Hamilton out, the two exchanged smiles.

The district attorney’s office agreed three years ago to reconsider Pratt’s conviction. On Thursday, Cowell chided prosecutors for having yet to complete the task.

Retired Deputy Dist. Atty. Harry B. Sondheim, who is responsible for the review, said it has taken so long, in part, because “truth and justice are concepts the district attorney’s office continues to pursue in this case.”

That remark angered Pratt’s attorneys, Stuart Hanlon and Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., with Hanlon retorting: “We are not going to sit here and listen to people who have had this case for three years talk about truth and justice.”

Cowell said that before he can deal with the issues raised by Pratt’s defense, he has to resolve what he called “a late challenge” to his jurisdiction brought by Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s office.

In court papers filed Wednesday, prosecutors argued that state law requires that Pratt’s writ seeking a new trial be transferred to the state Supreme Court. The reason, they said, is that since his conviction Pratt has had earlier hearings in Superior Court and the State Court of Appeal.

Cowell acknowledged that there are no exceptions to the law, which he said is aimed at preventing attorneys from “courtroom shopping” in an effort to find a sympathetic judge. Only with the high court’s approval can the Pratt case be returned to Los Angeles Superior Court.

Nonetheless, the judge set a hearing for April 17, when Pratt’s lawyers will be able to make their case for keeping the hearing in Cowell’s courtroom. He ordered that Pratt be held in Los Angeles until that hearing, but denied a defense request that bail be granted.