Gov't of the Virgin Islands v. Mills, No. 13-4705 (3d Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseBased on the 2000 shooting death of Clement, Mills was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted robbery, and two weapons offenses. The district court for the Virgin Islands and the Third Circuit affirmed his convictions. While the prosecutors engaged in serious misconduct by repeated suggestions that the jurors could not be safe in their homes if Mills was free, repeated references to the possibility that the gun Mills discarded would endanger schoolchildren and the community, and the display throughout closing argument of a gruesome crime-scene photo of the victim’s corpse. this misconduct did not render his trial fundamentally unfair. The courts also rejected arguments that the self-defense jury instructions were improper. Mills’s ineffective assistance claim was rejected because the record was not sufficiently developed.
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