Biography
Patrick Hooty Croy was a Shasta Indian sentenced to death for the 1978 shooting death of a Yreka, California police officer following a confrontation that escalated into a hillside shootout. Croy, his sister Norma Jean Croy, and several cousins were prosecuted; Patrick was convicted of first-degree murder in 1979 and sent to death row. In 1985 the California Supreme Court overturned his conviction. At his 1990 retrial, defended by attorney Tony Serra with a landmark defense rooted in the history of violence against Native people, Croy testified that he had acted in self-defense and was acquitted — after roughly twelve years in prison, seven of them on death row. His sister Norma Jean, also convicted in the case, was not released until 1997.
