David Earl Miller spent 36 years on death row. The day he died, he said his last words twice
by Matt Lakin, Yihyun Jeong and Adam Tamburin
Nashville Tennessean
December 7, 2018
David Earl Miller got to say his last words twice.
He didn't seem to care if anyone heard.
He mumbled at first, barely looked up, didn't even bother to raise his voice when the warden asked him to repeat himself.
"Beats being on death row," he muttered.
Miller, 61, spent 36 years on death row — more than any other living Tennessee inmate. No family members were there when he died. Only his attorney, federal public defender Stephen Kissinger, came on his behalf.
Miller was sentenced to death for the May 1981 murder of 23-year-old Lee Standifer of Knoxville, who was mentally disabled.
The execution chamber sat empty for nearly a decade before three deaths this year established a pace that is set to become business as usual in Tennessee.
Billy Ray Irick died by lethal injection on Aug. 9 and Edmund Zagorski was electrocuted on Nov. 1. Miller was the third person executed this year.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has scheduled four executions in 2019 and two in 2020. All of the men had prior execution dates set by the state's highest court.
Those plans were temporarily halted as a result of pending legal challenges to Tennessee's lethal injection protocol. Those challenges, which reached the U.S. Supreme Court, ultimately failed.
Zagorski's case, in a way, set the stage for Miller. The electric chair had not been used in Tennessee in 11 years, and no other state has used it since 2013.
He chose electrocution, believing death would be quicker and less painful than a cocktail of drugs, but maintained that both methods are unconstitutional.
Miller argued for the firing squad, suggesting it was more humane than either of the state's two methods. But Tennessee law does not allow a firing squad execution.
So Miller followed Zagorski's example.
Miller, Zagorski executions followed parallel tracks
The two executions were alike in many ways.
Both men were strapped down to the chair with leather straps and buckles. A large sponge, soaked in saline solution, and a metal helmet were placed on their heads.
The solution dripped down their faces and soaked their chests. Prison staff wiped it off with a towel in their final moments.
On Thursday, when the warden signaled for the first charge of 1,750 volts of electricity, Miller's upper body raised up in the chair and his elbows stuck out.
Both clenched their hands into fists. Miller's pinkies stuck out straight over the armrest of the chair. Zagroski's pinkies were described as appearing to be either dislocated or broken.
Neither made any signs of movements during the short pause before the second jolt.
They were quiet.
Miller was pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. local time. Zagorski at 7:26 p.m.
Protesters become familiar faces as a new routine emerges
Outside the prison, protesters on opposite sides of the death penalty debate are familiar with one another as these protests become part of their routine.
"I will always come," Rick Laude said.
Laude, a death penalty supporter, was one of several protesters outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Thursday night that stood watch at the previous two executions in Nashville this year.
He comes in support of the victim, but also because he thinks the death penalty is a deterrent for crime. Across a fence and an ideological divide stood Glen Miller, another repeat attendee of Tennessee’s executions in 2018.
"This needs to be abolished," Miller said. "It’s a broken system. It’s an expensive system. It puts state employees in a terrible position to have to carry this out and it’s wrong."
A trend of selecting the electric chair
The paths to the electric chair for Zagorski and Miller sprung from a national debate over lethal injection drugs that shows no sign of waning.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the state's controversial lethal injection cocktail — three drugs medical experts said would lead to an extremely painful death.
Both inmates preferred 35 seconds total of electric currents running through their bodies to a lethal injection that could take up to 20 minutes to kill them.
Inmates in other states have taken similar paths, choosing deaths that seemed more viscerally violent in hopes that it would shield them from silent torment as poison coursed through their veins.
Tennessee's condemned are likely to face a similar choice.
Lethal injection remains a focus even during electrocutions
The spate of inmates rejecting lethal injections is arguably a direct byproduct of the Supreme Court's requirements surrounding legal challenges.
It is not enough for inmates challenging a particular drug to prove lethal injection leads to torture, which is barred by the U.S. Constitution. The high court also requires inmates to find a readily available alternative to the drugs.
If challengers fail to meet both requirements, they fail altogether.
As a result of that standard, the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected the challenge here because they found the inmates hadn’t pointed to another cocktail of drugs the state could feasibly purchase.
In all three executions this year, the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Bill Haslam declined to intervene.
Questions remain about Miller's murder conviction
It's still not known how Miller entered Standifer's life. But there are guesses.
She was naive and trusting. Almost innocent like a child.
He was handsome. They were the same age.
Those who knew Standifer said she never turned down a chance to make a new friend.
On May 30, she called her mom before she went to meet Miller.
Police later retraced their steps: from the YWCA to the Hideaway Lounge, a favorite hangout of Miller's, now torn down; to the library on Church Avenue, where he checked out a book that included descriptions of murder during sex; and to the bus station, where Miller finagled a taxi ride to a pastor's home in South Knoxville.
It was a Wednesday night, a common day for church prayer meetings, so the pastor was away. The pair had the house to themselves.
An autopsy report determined he struck her twice with a fire poker and then stabbed her repeatedly.
Miller later told police that Standifer, whom he had given alcohol, grabbed him and sent him into a blind rage when he told her he was leaving town.
"I turned around and hit her," Miller said in a taped confession. The blood "just sprayed all over when I hit her. ... She quit breathing. ... (I) drug her downstairs through the basement and out through the yard and pulled her over into the woods."
Miller's attorneys say years of abuse and mental illness fueled his crime
Miller's attorneys have argued he lashed out in a burst of psychotic fury, driven by years of pent-up anger from a lifetime of abuse.
Miller's life began with alcohol in the womb, sexual abuse and beatings by family from age 5, a suicide attempt at 6 and drug use from age 10.
By age 13, he'd landed in a state reform school where counselors regularly whipped boys with rubber hoses and turned a blind eye to sexual molestation.
He later said he couldn't remember a single person from his early years ever telling him they loved him.
After Miller's death, Kissinger, his attorney and public defender, spoke at a news conference. He said Miller "cared deeply" for Standifer.
"She would be alive today if it weren’t for a sadistic stepfather and a mother who violated every trust that a son should have," Kissinger said. "Maybe what I should be doing is ask you all that question. What is it we did here today?"
Lee Standifer’s mother, Helen Standifer, spoke with USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee after her daughter's killer was pronounced dead.
She responded to Kissinger’s assertion that Miller was not to blame for her daughter's death.
"At some point everybody has to take responsibility for their actions."
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