Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:08:45 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Fwd: Geronimo Pratt vindicated. Now a free man


Calif. Court Affirms Freedom For Ex-Black Panther

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California state appeals court
Tuesday affirmed the freedom of former Black Panther Elmer
''Geronimo'' Pratt, saying a lower court judge had acted
correctly when he ordered him released after 27 years behind
bars.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles said Orange
County Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey was right to overturn
Pratt's 1972 murder conviction and free him in June, 1997, on
the basis that prosecutors had suppressed evidence.

``Our conclusion is that the order granting Pratt's petition
(for freedom) was properly granted ... accordingly, that order
is affirmed,'' the three judge panel said in a unanimous
decision.

Dickey ruled in 1997 that prosecutors should have disclosed
that a key witness to the Dec. 18, 1968, shooting of 27-year-old
Caroline Olsen -- Pratt's fellow Panther Julius Butler -- had
worked as an FBI informant who could have been seeking leniency
from the District Attorney's Office in his own case.

Butler gave police a letter saying that Pratt had confessed
to shooting the school teacher in a robbery attempt on a Santa
Monica tennis court. Olsen's husband, Kenneth, was wounded in
the attack.

Pratt, who now calls himself ``Geronimo ji Jaga'', had
become a cause celebre in certain Hollywood circles, drawing
support from celebrities such as Sean Penn and Marlon Brando.

The state appeals court was careful not to deliver an
opinion on Pratt's guilt or innocence in the attack, noting
that ``that issue is not before us.''

Pratt himself has consistently claimed he was the victim of
a political frame-up and was attending a meeting of the Black
Panthers in Oakland, Calif., when the murder occurred 400 miles
(640 km) away in Santa Monica, Calif.

But the court did say that the conviction that prosecutors
achieved on the basis of Butler's testimony was suspect.

``We conclude that, without Julius Butler, a verdict of
guilt on what was otherwise presented at trial is not worthy of
our confidence,'' the court's decision said.



-- 
Chuck0

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