Pratt Case Witness’ Credibility Assailed

Attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. assaulted the credibility of Julius C. “Julio” Butler on Tuesday in an effort to show that the key prosecution witness against former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt did not tell the truth in 1972 when he denied being a law enforcement informant.

Butler’s testimony is seen as crucial in Pratt’s effort to win a retrial of his 24-year-old murder conviction. During Pratt’s original trial, the jury that convicted him did not know that Butler had provided FBI agents with information for 2 1/2 years before Pratt’s trial. It was not until seven years later that FBI documents containing that information were released.

Before Tuesday’s testimony, Cochran, who represented Pratt at his murder trial, had said that he had been waiting nearly 25 years to get Butler back on the witness stand. Butler is now an attorney and chairman of the board of trustees at Los Angeles’ oldest and most prominent black church.

Cochran focused Tuesday on documents showing that Butler, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy and an ex-Panther, had provided information to law enforcement. He read Butler’s comments in interviews with investigators earlier this year that he either had been given a gun or paid money to buy one by a district attorney’s office detective in 1970.

As testimony drew to a close Tuesday in the hearing on a new trial, Cochran began confronting Butler with the FBI documents.

“In 1972, you knew what perjury was because you had worked in law enforcement?” Cochran asked.

“Yes,” Butler answered.

Cochran then asked him about comments he made to agents that Panthers in the Bay Area had a machine gun and a rocket launcher. Butler said he remembered talking to agents about the rocket launcher.

“When you testified under oath [in 1972] that you never informed on anyone, you were lying, weren’t you?” Cochran asked.

“No,” Butler answered.

Courtroom observers were surprised that Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey allowed Cochran to question Butler about his role with the FBI over objections from prosecutors.

The Orange County hearing is Pratt’s fifth attempt to have his conviction overturned, and Dickey had said he did not plan to rehear evidence that had been brought up in earlier hearings, such as Butler’s role as an informant. But the judge said from the outset that he was not specifically precluding any evidence.

“The judge clearly wants to know what role Julius Butler played in this case,” San Francisco attorney Stuart Hanlon, who also represents Pratt, said outside court. “This is why he granted the hearing. The issue is Butler’s credibility.”

Pratt has steadfastly maintained that he was attending party meetings in Oakland when the murders occurred, and that the FBI knew that because agents had him under surveillance.

Cochran had just begun challenging Butler with the FBI documents as Tuesday’s testimony drew to a close. Earlier, Cochran had read a summary of an interview of Butler by district attorney’s office investigators.

“When Butler was asked if he had ever been paid as an informant for any law enforcement agency, he replied, ‘Yes,’ ” Cochran read from the summary.

The interview also said Butler stated that he told investigators he was either given a gun or money to buy a gun, but that he refused to identify who in the district attorney’s office had done so.

Testifying Tuesday, Butler said former district attorney’s detective Morris “Morrie” Bowles gave him the money for the gun “in the latter part of 1970.”

After pointing out that Butler at the time was on probation after pleading no contest to four felonies, Cochran said: “You were on probation for a felony and you were given money to buy a gun by a person in law enforcement in Los Angeles County?”

Butler answered: “Possible,” adding that he could have been given the money after he had completed probation.

Butler testified Tuesday that the summary “incorrectly stated” his comments, and denied saying that he was an informant.

Cochran will continue his questioning of Butler today, hoping to show more contradictions between Butler’s denials that he was an informant and his comments to various law enforcement agencies.

For more than a decade, Butler’s role in placing Pratt behind bars has raised vexing questions for his contemporaries. Much of the case against Pratt has, by now, devolved into a question of which man is more credible.

Among those most publicly caught in the middle are the people at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.

For example, Butler has for 13 years been a member of the board of trustees at the venerable church and now heads the board. Yet, even as Butler was ascending through the church ranks in 1980, First AME’s pastor, the Rev. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, was adding his name to a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a new trial for Pratt.

Three years ago, Pratt supporters demonstrated outside First AME, waving picket signs that read, “The snitch got to go. Free Geronimo”--a demand that was clearly aimed at Butler, who was board chairman by then.

Shortly afterward, however, the leadership of the church’s 3,500-member men’s group rallied behind Butler, expressing its support in a formal vote of confidence.

Murray has not responded to requests for comment on the church’s position on the Pratt case. However, on Tuesday, two other church officials tried to explain.

“Geronimo Pratt has been a political prisoner, and one of the last political prisoners in this country,” said the Rev. Leonard Jackson, community liaison for the church. “Justice is justice, and justice must be served. If there was an error in finding him guilty, we must rectify that.

“But as far as Julius Butler is concerned, what happened in the past and how we deal with Mr. Butler here and now are two different stories,” Jackson said. “We don’t know and may never know what took place with Julius as far as the system goes, [but] it’s not my place to even question it. That’s between Julius and his God.”