Lonnie McLucas was aBlack Panther Party member inBridgeport, Connecticut who was found guilty ofconspiracy to commit murder for his involvement in the May 21, 1969 murder ofNew York City PantherAlex Rackley, in the first of theNew Haven Black Panther trials in 1970.[1]
Rackley had been held and tortured atNew Haven, Connecticut Panther headquarters for two days, under suspicion of being an informant for theFBI'sCOINTELPRO program. It was established at the trial that afterwards,Warren Kimbro, a resident of the house, McLucas, and national Pantherfield marshalGeorge W. Sams, Jr. had driven Rackley to the marshes ofMiddlefield, Connecticut, where Kimbro and McLucas had each shot Rackley, on Sams' orders. Sams testified that national Panther leaderBobby Seale, who had been speaking atYale University the day previous to the murder, had personally ordered the killing, but there was no corroborating evidence, and Seale was acquitted by ahung jury.
According to Michael Koskoff, one of the lawyers for McLucas,
Many of the people in the New Haven chapter of the Panthers weremiddle class. They were defined more by theirpropaganda than by their own personalities. And they were young and impressionable. Lonnie, for example, was so eager to please and so easy to manipulate. If you told him to jump off a bridge, he'd do it.[2]
McLucas was arrested a month after the murder inSalt Lake City, Utah, and brought back to New Haven for trial. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder, but was found guilty and received a sentence of twelve to fifteen years, but served only a small part of that sentence.
The case later became part of anurban legend that falsely claims thatHillary Clinton defended Bobby Seale and helped him get acquitted. This was not true, as Clinton was a student at the time and not a lawyer.[3][4]
