After a Tarrant County judge declared a mistrial in the murder of a Sansom Park motorcycle gang and recused himself from the case, Anthony Patterson was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison.
On Tuesday, a jury found Patterson, 28, guilty of fatally stabbing Christopher Johnson, 29, outside a Sansom Park bar in 2020. He was convicted Tuesday on charges of murder and engaging in organized criminal activity.
The verdict comes about a year after State District Judge Elizabeth Beach declared a mistrial on each of the six charges on which Patterson had been indicted by a grand jury: engaging in organized criminal activity – murder; murder; two counts of involvement in organized criminal activity involving aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
In April 2023, Beach concluded that the jury could not reach a verdict in the case.
“So the court at this point, because the jury has been held together for so long that it is completely unlikely that it can reach an agreement, will declare a mistrial and the jury will be dismissed,” Beach said. Transcript dated April 13, 2023.
According to Beach, the jury deliberated 21 hours over four days, which is more than the 19 to 20 hours of testimony the jury heard.
Patterson’s attorney James Martin requested a recusal on the grounds that Beach has personal knowledge of disputed evidence in the case and that she has been a material witness.
In the recusal motion, Martin said Beach completed the proceedings “so quickly that the court did not allow sufficient time for the state or [Patterson] to submit any objection in writing.”
Patterson’s counsel was not given a reasonable opportunity to object at this time, Martin wrote. The jury had not indicated there was a deadlock, he said.
In September 2023, Beach distanced herself. The case was transferred to Judge David Hagerman in the 297th District Court.
But the defense argued that constitutional prohibitions on prosecuting a suspect on the same charge twice bar Patterson’s retrial. On April 10, 2023, Patterson’s attorney requested that the case be dismissed on the grounds of double jeopardy.
Patterson failed to show that the trial court abused its discretion in dismissing the jury, Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Page Simpson wrote in the state’s response to the defense’s double jeopardy argument.
Two other suspects were charged in the fatal stabbing. Patterson was a member of the Pagan outlaw motorcycle gang, the district attorney’s office alleged. Patterson and his co-defendants, Christopher Bailey and Nathaniel McCurdy, wrongly believed Johnson was a member of Hells Angels, a rival gang, the district attorney’s office said.
Johnson was stabbed in a parking lot on Oct. 24, 2020, after Patterson and others forced him outside from Eight Balls Billiard and Bar in the 5800 block of Jacksboro Highway, the district attorney’s office said.
Patterson, Bailey and McCurdy were arrested in February 2021 while attending a Pagan’s meeting in Hunt County.
A jury found 37-year-old McCurdy guilty on October 26, 2022, on six counts in an indictment identical to Patterson’s, and Beach sentenced him to 50 years in prison.
On the day Beach declared a mistrial against Patterson, the district attorney’s office filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Bailey. He testified as a witness for the state at McCurdy’s trial.
