A death row inmate convicted of killing a couple during a robbery in 2004 is slated to be executed at the end of this month, a stay on the execution based on his claim of innocence denied by a federal judge this week.
Jamie Mills will be put to death at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama , on May 30, despite his desperate attempts to fight his sentence in two federal lawsuits, according to local news site Al.com .
The first suit challenges the state's lethal injection protocols while the second claims his former wife lied when she testified against him in his trial.
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There have been several botched attempts at executions in the Southern state, with the execution of Joe Nathan James Jr. taking three hours, the longest in U.S. history, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and the executions of Alan Eugene Miller and Kenneth Eugene Smith both failing when lethal injection was attempted.
Smith was later killed by nitrogen hypoxia in the first-ever execution of its kind in late January this year. Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, Smith's spiritual adviser, accompanied the convict into the chamber, located at the same correctional facility where Mills is slated to be executed.
Hood previously told The Mirror the entire event was "torture, cruel and unusual punishment, for minutes and minutes" as he said Smith "looked like a fish out of water" as he "kept heaving back and forth, back and forth" as mucus and saliva hit the inside of the gas mask tethered to his face to administer the gas.
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Mills is set to be put to death by legal injection after being convicted of murdering a couple he and his ex-wife, JoAnn Mills, robbed in June 2004. Floyd and Vera Hill were an elderly couple living in Marion County, which is located in the northwest of the state along the Mississippi border about 75 miles northwest of Birmingham.
The couple was beaten with a machete, a ball-peen hammer and a tire iron, according to Al.com, both dying from their injuries. Afterward, the Mills reportedly stole cash and prescription medications from them.
According to the outlet, a jury recommended 11-1 that Mills be put to death for the killings — but that's where things get messy. Mills argued in the second lawsuit that his ex-wife only testified against him in 2007 during his trial because she had accepted a prearranged plea agreement that spared her life.
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However, U.S. District Judge Scott Googler wrote on Friday as he issued a ruling in the case that Mills made the same claim "unsuccessfully many times" before and that this time was no different. He said Mills "never offered any evidence in support of this claim" as he added that the argument was "untimely and meritless."
The judge also reportedly stated that a plea agreement doesn't necessarily mean that JoAnn didn't tell the truth when she testified. Coogler also wrote, according to Al.com, "JoAnn's testimony was but one part fo the overwhelming evidence against Mills, including a second witness linking his vehicle to the crime scene as well as the fact that at pair of his work pants (with his name on the inside tab) stained with the victims' blood, murder weapons containing the victims' DNA and a concrete block were found in his trunk."
The judge said that "even if JoAnn's testimony had been excluded at Mills' trial, there was sufficient evidence to convict him for the murders."
So, the 50-year-old will be executed on May 30, his claims of innocence and of foul play in the trial refuted as his request for a stay is denied. His case arguing against lethal injection is still pending, however, so he's still holding out hope for a stay on the execution related to his claims that he's "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."
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