Judge Testifies in Case of Ex-Panther Leader

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge who as a deputy district attorney prosecuted Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt in 1972 testified Thursday that he knew his key witness against the former Black Panther Party leader was a felon who illegally carried a loaded gun.

Judge Richard P. Kalustian said he did not think it was right for Julius C. “Julio” Butler to violate the law by carrying the pistol, but said he did nothing to stop Butler because “his life was in danger.”

Kalustian testified in an Orange County Superior Court hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to overturn Pratt’s murder conviction. The hearing was moved to Orange County to avoid a conflict of interest because Kalustian is a witness.

Kalustian also testified that he wrote Butler’s probation officer days after Pratt was convicted to have a fine Butler owed reduced. The next year, he filed a motion that resulted in Butler’s conviction on four felony charges being reduced to a misdemeanor so that Butler, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy and ex-Panther, could attend law school, Kalustian said.

At Pratt’s trial for the 1968 murder of a schoolteacher on a Santa Monica tennis court, Butler testified that Pratt had confessed the crime to him. Butler denied that he was an informant for law enforcement, but documents released seven years after the trial showed that he had provided information to the FBI for 2 1/2 years before Pratt’s conviction.