Kathleen Mary Ryan; Lawyer for Elmer ‘Geronimo’ Pratt

Kathleen Mary Ryan, 46, a San Francisco attorney who volunteered legal assistance to former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt in the ultimately successful effort to free him from prison by overturning his 1972 murder conviction. Ryan was married to Stuart Hanlon, the attorney who led the battle to free Pratt. Pratt is now out on bail while prosecutors appeal. Ryan worked on a successful civil rights suit that won Pratt’s release from solitary confinement after eight years in prison, and she worked on two unsuccessful earlier petitions to reverse his conviction. A native of Boston, she earned a law degree at the University of San Francisco. After her early work for Pratt, she developed a family law practice and provided free legal services for indigent women who were going through divorce. On Saturday in San Francisco of leukemia.