Ray Lee Patterson

Ray Lee Patterson was a Black U.S. Marine sergeant convicted of the self-defense killings of two white Georgia law-enforcement officers who stopped his car on May 4, 1975. The Black Panther reported in 1977 that he was seeking a new trial, arguing that the troopers had drawn a service revolver on him during a struggle and that his trial was tainted by judicial bias and missing evidence (the removed carpet of the patrol car). An all-white jury convicted him and he was given two consecutive life sentences. He was defended by John Carroll and Millard Farmer of the Team Defense project.