Biography
Roy Lee Patterson was a decorated Black Marine sergeant arrested after the May 4, 1975 deaths of a Georgia state trooper and a Cordele police officer during a struggle over the trooper’s gun. Patterson said he acted in defense of himself and his family after the trooper attacked him. A majority-white jury convicted him in September 1975 and imposed two consecutive life sentences. The Eleventh Circuit overturned the convictions in 1984 because of an unconstitutional jury instruction. A 1986 retrial ended with nine jurors voting to acquit and three voting to convict, producing a mistrial; he remained imprisoned while another trial was prepared in 1987. His eventual release date remains unresolved.
The Black Panther’s December 6, 1975 report identifies Roy Lee Patterson as a Marine sergeant from Gastonia, North Carolina who had served in Vietnam. It describes his defense account of the Cordele confrontation and reports that the Southern Poverty Law Center was appealing his conviction. The report also describes the denial of state funding for a ballistics expert and criminologist after he was declared indigent.
The Black Panther, December 6, 1975, volume XIV no.12, PDF page 8.
