Nearly two years after a man was shot and killed at a Gainesville car wash, a six-person jury on Monday night convicted Eugene Javon Patrick of second-degree murder.
Circuit Judge James Colaw immediately sentenced him to life in prison.
The trial, which lasted seven hours from opening statement to verdict, included video of the Saturday afternoon altercation in 2021 in which Patrick and the victim, Bobby “Chedda Bob” Bernard Hopkins, appeared to argue. In his testimony, Patrick said Hopkins earlier gave him a pound of marijuana worth $2,300 to sell, and said he wanted nothing to do with it. Hopkins, he said, left him anyway.
Defense attorney Stephen N. Bernstein argued that Patrick was acting in self-defense after Hopkins lunged at him and, according to police testimony, yelled, “Where’s my money?” Patrick stated that Hopkins was choking him and tried to pull his arms away, then fired his gun. Police said the gun was unlicensed and hidden in his pocket, prompting an additional charge against him after the arrest.
“They feared for my life. I couldn’t breathe,” he said Monday.
A jury didn’t believe it.
Patrick initially accepted a felony manslaughter plea deal that would have put him in prison for 15 years, but changed his plea two weeks later and demanded a trial.
State’s Attorney Ryan Nagel told the jury, which deliberated for just under an hour, that Patrick failed to properly retreat from the altercation, as required to claim self-defense under the statute of Florida. During cross-examination, prosecutor Omar Hechavarria repeatedly asked Patrick why he chose to respond with deadly force instead of continuing to physically fight.
The State sought the maximum penalty for second-degree murder: life imprisonment.
“In the state’s mind, this should be life for a life,” Nagel said. He acknowledged the young age of Patrick, 24, but said the victim was also young and was unjustly killed.
Patrick, who has spent more than 700 days in the Alachua County Jail awaiting trial, spent most of the day looking at the jury, selected just that morning, and Judge James M. Colaw. He remained calm for the duration of the trial, looked at his family after receiving his guilty verdict, and was then led away by police.
Many of his family members left the courtroom as Hopkins’ older sister, Stephanie Jenkins, spoke before the sentencing on behalf of her family.
“I can’t say I forgive you right now, because I don’t,” he said. “For 723 days, I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my little brother.”
Bernstein said after the verdict that Patrick would seek an appeal of his conviction, but declined to discuss his client’s choice to change his plea.
