Jury Decides Against Estate Of Robert Thomas, Sr. In Wrongful Death Suit King County Sheriff’s Deputy Melvin Miller beat Robert Thomas Sr. to the draw in a self-defense gun battle three years ago, decided a jury in a civil trial in a Federal U.S. District Court here in Seattle, and the deputy was not “a menacing off-duty white policeman” on his home turf when he shot and killed Thomas Sr. and wounded his son, Robert Thomas, Jr. in April of 2002. Filed on behalf of Thomas’s four children – including Robert Thomas Jr., who was in the truck and shot in the hand by the deputy in the confrontation – the wrongful-death suit asked for unspecified compensation and punitive damages and named Miller and his wife, King County and the Sheriff’s Office as defendants. The trial, with an all-white jury of four women and two men, began three weeks ago. In April 2002, emotions from Thomas’ funeral ran so high that a crowd of approximately 200 protesters, led by local civil rights leaders and ministers, crowded onto I-5 where they were surrounded by police officers and shut down the downtown freeway during rush hour traffic, after leaving the funeral Thomas’ funeral service. And at the following Sept. 2002 Inquest, five of the six jurors found that Miller had reason to fear for his life when he confronted Thomas, his son and a white female passenger as they sat in Thomas, Sr.’s truck near Miller’s residence. The jury’s lone dissenting vote on several key questions came from its only African American member. After that inquest King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng decided not to bring criminal charges against Miller and the federal Justice Department followed suit not to file federal criminal civil rights violations against the deputy. Attorney Brad Marshall’s office, who represented the Estate of Robert Thomas, Sr. in the recent litigation against Miller in the shooting death of Robert Thomas, Sr., complained in a Seattle Medium article in January 2005, of attempts by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to instruct and to assist Deputy Miller’s attorneys on how to overcome physical evidence problems that they have in their case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not respond to reporters inquiries at that time. On that fatal day — April 7, 2002 — when Robert Thomas Sr. was killed, Miller, who is white, was off-duty when a neighbor told him that a truck was blocking a private road. The occupants were Thomas, his son and another passenger (a white woman) who were lost and had pulled over to get their bearings. According to his court testimony, Deputy Miller – wearing civilian clothes and carrying a weapon – observed the driver drinking from a wine bottle. And that the driver, Thomas Sr., pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger but that the gun did not fire and that Thomas attempted to pull back the slide of the gun, presumably to load a cartridge into the chamber. Miller said he then fired three shots, one hitting passenger Thomas Jr. in the hand, before identifying himself as a deputy. He testified that he believed that it would have been “unsafe” for him to identify himself sooner. Thomas Sr. died at the scene and records show his blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit and that he had cocaine in his system. The current jury was shown a picture of him slumped over the steering wheel of his vehicle with a gun in his hand. Late last Friday – even after court testimony from Thomas Jr. of begging for his life as Deputy Miller pulled a gun from his waistband and fired three shots into the pickup he was riding in – the jury in the federal U.S. District Court denied the Thomas estate’s $25 million wrongful-death civil lawsuit, and like the 2002 inquest, found that that in firing three shots into the pickup that killed Thomas Sr. and wounding Robert Thomas Jr., Deputy Miller did not violate the Thomases’ rights under the Fourth Amendment. Attorney Brad Marshall’s office did not return numerous calls prior to press time and assistants at the office said that they were not at liberty to discuss any of the aspects of the case.