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Jailed 25 Years, Black Panther Seeks New Trial

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

An Orange County judge ordered a hearing Friday to determine if there is enough evidence to grant former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt a new trial on the murder conviction that has kept him behind bars for a quarter-century.

Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey, who was assigned the case after the entire Los Angeles County Superior Court bench was disqualified in September, set Dec. 16 to begin hearing testimony in his Santa Ana courtroom.

Pratt, 49, was convicted in 1972 of shooting Caroline Olsen to death on a Santa Monica tennis court and of critically wounding her husband during a December 1968 robbery that netted $18.

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Pratt has maintained since his arrest that he was in Oakland attending party meetings when the murder occurred and that he was framed by the FBI, which had targeted him and the Panthers for “neutralization” as part of its infamous counterintelligence program--COINTELPRO.

Dickey stressed Friday that he would not open the hearing to all of the issues raised in Pratt’s 1972 trial, or rehear issues that have been dealt with in Pratt’s earlier efforts to win a new trial.

The judge said he wanted the December hearing to focus initially on several recent revelations regarding key prosecution witness Julius “Julio” Butler, a former Panther and former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who testified that Pratt confessed the Olsen murder to him.

Butler’s name turned up on district attorney’s office confidential informant cards dated January 1972--six months before Pratt’s trial. Butler testified at Pratt’s trial that he had never been a law enforcement informant, but FBI documents released after the trial revealed that he had provided information to agents for more than two years.

Notations on Butler’s cards indicated that they were prepared by former district attorney’s office Det. Morris “Morrie” Bowles. However, Bowles has said he does not recall preparing the cards or putting them in the informant file.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald “Mike” Carroll told investigators in June that he believed Pratt’s prosecutor, Richard P. Kalustian, now a Superior Court judge, had helped Butler get a permit to carry a gun. Carroll also said he thought Kalustian had arranged to have a felony conviction on Butler’s record reduced to a misdemeanor so that Butler could buy a gun.

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Kalustian has denied those allegations.

“There has to be some clarification on what efforts were made by Kalustian on Butler’s behalf,” Dickey said Friday. “I think we have to hear from Bowles. Just saying I don’t remember how [Butler’s name turned up in the informant file] is not good enough.”

The judge said he wondered why it is only being disclosed now--”24 years later”--that Butler’s name was in the informant file.

“It’s clear that this is not a typical case,” Dickey said. “It cries out for resolution.”

Pratt’s case was transferred to Orange County after it became evident that Kalustian would be a witness. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael A. Cowell disqualified himself and the entire Los Angeles County Superior Court bench in September to avoid a conflict of interest.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for, to get Julius Butler on the stand to talk about his testimony of 24 years earlier,” said lay minister James McCloskey, whose New Jersey-based Centurion Ministries has been working for Pratt’s release.

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