Testimony Concludes in Pratt’s Bid for New Trial
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Testimony on whether imprisoned former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt’s murder conviction should be overturned concluded Friday, leaving Pratt’s lawyers optimistic that their client has been given his best chance to win a new trial in the nearly 25 years since his conviction.
The thrust of Pratt’s request for a new trial was that the key witness against him, Julius C. “Julio” Butler, was an informant for law enforcement--an allegation Butler denied during Pratt’s 1972 trial for the murder of a teacher on a Santa Monica tennis court in 1968.
FBI documents released in 1979 showed that Butler had provided information to agents for more than two years before Pratt’s trial. Last summer, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office found Butler’s name in a file of its confidential informants.
Santa Ana Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey ordered lawyers for both sides to submit written arguments by Feb. 14.
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