Alabama Death Row Inmate Faces Execution Amidst Legal Battles Over Innocence and Method

The Alabama death row inmate scheduled for lethal injection in two weeks is currently the subject of two court lawsuits, one contesting the state’s execution technique and the other alleging his innocence. Jamie Mills, 50, is scheduled to die from Alabama’s three-drug fatal injection cocktail on May 30 at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

Mills and his then-wife, JoAnn Mills, were convicted of beating Floyd and Vera Hill to death in June 2004. The Mills attacked the elderly couple with a machete, a ball-peen hammer, and a tire iron at their Marion County home before stealing cash and prescription drugs, according to authorities.

He is represented by lawyers from the Equal Justice Initiative, who have been pursuing relief through several cases. Mills’ two federal complaints are proceeding in the Middle District Court and the Northern District Court of Alabama, respectively, before two different federal judges.

In his Northern District claim, Mills claimed that his wife, who testified against him in 2007, did so only because of a planned plea arrangement that spared her the death penalty.

Last month, Mills’ lawyers submitted a motion asking a federal judge to reconsider his case, claiming that “newly discovered evidence calls into question not only the reliability of the capital trial verdict in this case but also the integrity” of the court.

Mills’ lawyers cited a new affidavit from JoAnn Mills’ previous attorney. That attorney stated that in 2007 before either of the Mills was tried for capital murder, he visited with the then-district attorney and the victims’ families. According to the attorney, at that meeting, the DA agreed to let JoAnn Mills plead guilty to the lesser charge of murder and avoid the death penalty in exchange for her testimony against her husband.

Marion County prosecutors and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office have always maintained that no agreement existed before JoAnn Mills’ testimony.

However, Mills’ defenders believe that his conviction was primarily based on JoAnn Mills’ testimony. The victims’ blood and DNA were discovered on clothes with Mills’ name on the tags, which were recovered in Mills’ automobile. The murder weapons did not contain Mills’ DNA, and his lawyers have maintained that the items might have been placed in the trunk without Jamie Mills’ or his wife’s knowledge.

“This is a case primarily built on the testimony of a single witness: JoAnn Mills,” stated the petition. “Without her testimony, the State’s case was extremely weak. The physical evidence supported Mr. Mills’ defense claim that he was innocent and was being set up by (a man referred to as a “local drug user”), who was identified as a suspect in the killings and arrested with the victims’ medications and a substantial sum of money.

That man had access to the car on the day of the murders, Mills claimed. But the state responded that Mills’ lawyers had been arguing over the alleged plea deal for 17 years and had only recently communicated with JoAnn Mills’ old counsel. The AG’s Office maintains that there was no planned settlement for JoAnn Mills and calls the filing “untimely and meritless.”

“Jamie Mills viciously murdered Floyd and Vera Hill when he and his common-law wife, JoAnn Mills, went to the elderly couple’s house to rob them one afternoon in June 2004. Three years later, JoAnn testified against Mills in his capital murder trial, providing explicit details about what he did to the victims and what the two of them did afterward to cover their tracks.

Prosecutors indicated that after Mills’ conviction and death sentence, the Hill family was glad that JoAnn Mills received a lighter sentence “because of the remorse she showed.” She pleaded guilty to murder and received a life sentence. She’ll be eligible for parole in 2027.

Lethal injection outfit

In a separate case filed by Mills, his attorneys claimed he “is at imminent risk of being subjected to an unnecessarily prolonged and torturous execution process at the hands of State officials with unreviewable authority, without the presence of counsel or access to the courts.”

Mills is scheduled to die by lethal injection after declining to opt into the state’s new execution procedure, which uses nitrogen gas, when inmates were given the option in June 2018. That complaint focuses on the most recent fatal injections, as well as two that were canceled in 2022 because the state ran out of time to establish an intravenous line for the lethal injection.

His complaint requests that his lawyers be present when execution team personnel from the prison begin the IV, a process that is generally attended solely by prison officials.

The state contended that this case should likewise be rejected.

To prevent Mills from being on the gurney for any longer than necessary, the state stated that prison officials “affirm that Mills will not be taken to the execution chamber until any stays of execution are lifted, and if a stay is granted while he is in the chamber, he will be removed from the gurney and returned to the holding cell.”

“The Hills deserved far better endings than Floyd’s brutal finish at Mills’ hands and Vera’s lingering death in hospice. His gamesmanship through hurried last-minute litigation should not be rewarded.