Alabama sets May lethal injection date for man convicted of killing couple during robbery

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) —

Alabama has set a May 30 execution date for a man convicted in the 2004 slaying of a couple during a robbery.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey set the date for the execution by lethal injection of Jamie Mills, 50. The Alabama Supreme Court last week authorized the governor to set an execution date.

Mills was convicted of capital murder for the 2004 slaying of Floyd and Vera Hill in Guin, a city of about 2,000 people in Marion County. Prosecutors said Mills and his wife went to the couple’s home where he beat the couple and stole $140 and medications.

Floyd Hill, 87, died from blunt and sharp-force wounds to his head and neck, and Vera Mills, 72, died from complications of head trauma 12 weeks after the crime, the attorney general’s office wrote in a court filing.

Attorneys for Mills had asked the Alabama Supreme Court to deny the execution date request while they pursue a pending claim of prosecutorial misconduct in the case.

Mills’ attorneys wrote in a March petition to a Marion County judge that prosecutors concealed that they had a plea deal with Mills’ wife that spared her from a possible death sentence. She was the key prosecution witness against Mills at his trial. The attorney general’s office disputed that there was a pretrial agreement.

Alabama, which carried out the nation’s first execution by nitrogen gas earlier this year, says it plans to put Mills to death by lethal injection.