31 May 2024 :
May 30, 2024 - Alabama. Jamie Mills, 50, White, was executed on May 30.
Mills was pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m. after a three-drug injection at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, authorities said.
Mills was the first inmate put to death by the state since Alabama became the first in the nation to execute an inmate using nitrogen gas months ago. Lethal injection remains Alabama’s default execution method unless a condemned inmate requests nitrogen gas or the electric chair.
Mills was convicted of capital murder in the deaths of Floyd Hill, 87, and his wife Vera Hill, 72. Prosecutors said Jamie Mills and his common-law wife JoAnn Mills attacked the couple on June 24, 2004, at their home during a robbery.
Mills was sentenced to death in 2007 with an 11-1 vote of the jury. JoAnn Mills had also been charged with capital murder, but after testifying against her husband, she pleaded to a reduced charge of murder and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. She remains incarcerated.
As the execution began, Mills gave a thumbs up to family members, who were watching from a witness room.
“I love my family. I love my brother and sister. I couldn’t ask for more,” Mills said as he looked in the direction of his brother and sister. He also thanked his attorney, Charlotte Morrison of the Equal Justice Initiative. “Charlotte, you fought hard for me. I love y’all. Carry on.”
As the first execution drug — a sedative — flowed, Mills appeared to quickly lose consciousness as a spiritual adviser prayed at the foot of the gurney.
At the 2007 trial, JoAnn Mills became the key witness against her common-law husband. She testified that after staying up all night smoking methamphetamine, her husband took her along to the victims’ home where she testified she saw her husband repeatedly strike the couple in the backyard shed, court documents indicate.
In final appeals, attorneys for Mills, who maintained his innocence at trial, had argued newly obtained evidence showed the prosecution lied about having a plea agreement with Mills’ wife to spare her from seeking the death penalty against her if she testified against her husband.
JoAnn Mill’s trial attorney wrote in a February affidavit that before the 2007 trial, he met with the district attorney, who agreed to let her plead guilty to a lesser charge if she testified. On the stand, JoAnn Mills said she was only hoping to gain “some forgiveness from God” by testifying.
The Equal Justice Initiative said after the execution that prosecutors “lied, deceived and misrepresented the reliability of the evidence against Jamie Mills for 17 years.”
Mills becomes the 2nd inmate put to death in 2024 in Alabama, the 74th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983, the 6th prisoner executed in the U.S. this year, and the 1,588th overall since the country resumed executions in 1977.
