Deeply Rooted Oklahoma Case Spotlight: Robert Lee Miller, Jr.

Robert Lee Miller, Jr.

Robert Lee Miller, Jr. was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and held on death row for three years after DNA evi­dence proved he was inno­cent. Bob Macy and Joyce Gilchrist both played a role in his wrong­ful cap­i­tal con­vic­tion.[1] Miller was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1998 for the mur­ders and rapes of two elder­ly women.[2] Gilchrist report­ed that semen col­lect­ed from the scene point­ed to some­one with type‑A blood, and hairs found at the scene were said to have ​“negroid char­ac­ter­is­tics.”[3] Miller was one of 173 Black men inter­ro­gat­ed about the case and one of 23 to give a blood sam­ple. Miller’s blood was type‑A.[4]

During his inter­ro­ga­tion, Miller said he was hal­lu­ci­nat­ing and was trou­bled by spir­its and demons. The offi­cers inter­ro­gat­ed Miller for twelve hours, feed­ing him infor­ma­tion about the crime. Miller even­tu­al­ly ​“con­fessed” to the mur­ders, though his descrip­tion of events was incon­sis­tent with the actu­al facts of the case. At tri­al, Macy used this false con­fes­sion, argu­ing to the jury: ​“He knew detail after detail. Details only the killer would know.” Macy also relied heav­i­ly on Gilchrist’s foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny about blood types and ​“negroid” hairs. However, Gilchrist test­ed oth­er blood sam­ples and sali­va sam­ples from the crime scene and found dif­fer­ent blood mark­ers that were incon­sis­tent with Miller’s sam­ple. Gilchrist said these incon­sis­ten­cies may have occurred because the sam­ple from the crime scene could have been mixed with the victim’s blood.[5]

A sec­ondary review of the hairs prompt­ed oth­er foren­sic sci­en­tists to describe Gilchrist’s tes­ti­mo­ny as ​“essen­tial­ly mean­ing­less” and ​“com­plete­ly unjus­ti­fied.”[6] Gilchrist’s foren­sic exam­i­na­tion also elim­i­nat­ed a man named Ronald Lott as a poten­tial sus­pect at the time. However, DNA test­ing con­duct­ed in 1995 con­clu­sive­ly showed that the semen at the crime scene belonged to Lott and not Miller.[7]

Despite the DNA evi­dence prov­ing that Miller was not the mur­der­er, Macy fought to keep Miller on death row for anoth­er three years, base­less­ly claim­ing he was an accom­plice to the mur­der.[8] This is part of a larg­er issue with race and the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem – Black death-row exonerees spend on aver­age over four years longer wait­ing to be exon­er­at­ed than white exonerees, in part due to high­er rates of offi­cial mis­con­duct and per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny in cas­es involv­ing Black exonerees.[9] Miller was final­ly released and exon­er­at­ed in 1998 after ten years of wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion.[10]

[1] Matt McWilliams, Cowboy Bob and Black Magic, Wagner & Lynch Blog (Oct. 6, 2016).

[2] Robert Miller, The Innocence Project (last vis­it­ed Sept. 29, 2022).

[3] Matt McWilliams, Cowboy Bob and Black Magic, Wagner & Lynch Blog (Oct. 6, 2016).

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Robert Miller, The Innocence Project (last vis­it­ed Sept. 29, 2022).

[7] Matt McWilliams, Cowboy Bob and Black Magic, Wagner & Lynch Blog (Oct. 6, 2016).

[8] Id.

[9] Death Penalty Information Center, DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic 4 (Feb. 18, 2021).

[10] Robert Miller, The Innocence Project (last vis­it­ed Sept. 29, 2022).