Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts in Houston, Texas

July 16, 2007

BRYAN MILLER: A REAL GANGSTA’

Essay by Billy Wayne Sinclair
E-mail Billy Wayne Sinclair:  Billy@JohnTFloyd.com 

It was not much of a house. There were no “nice” houses in the “ghetto’ of East Los Angeles. Simply called “the hood,” it was the home of more than a half-million economically deprived residents who lived daily in the crossfire of rival gangs and under the corrupt abuses of the 77th Division of the city’s police department. One of those ghetto residents was Alice Miller – a young woman with an enormous capacity to love and protect her fatherless family.
Standing on the front porch of the house, Alice was watching her son who was standing in their small front yard. He was afraid of a larger boy standing in the street talking “trash” at him. Darren was a bully, always trying to “tip” the younger, smaller boys – particularly Alice’s son Brian. Life brings moments when hard choices are unconditionally imposed. Alice Miller, who had given birth to Brian when she was just sixteen, seized that moment to impose a permanent lesson on her son.
“C’mon here, Brian,” she said, her voice silencing Darren’s street barking.
Sensing anger, perhaps a threat, Brian slowly and timidly walked up on the porch. He did see but felt the hard slap from his mother’s hand across his face.
“Don’t you ever let the words that come out of another man’s mouth intimidate you or put fear in your heart,” Alice said.
It was indeed a defining moment in Brian Miller’s life.
“My mother and I were always close,” he said. “She had me young – we were always more like sister and brother. She knew I was afraid of Darren – and she knew I would never survive in the ‘hood’ with fear in my heart.”
I met Brian Miller at the C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in 2004. We worked together in the prison’s garment factory. He knew I was a writer. He would often say “put me in your next book – I have a story to tell.” I listened. I had a keen interest in prison stories.
Miller had never been afraid of any man since that moment when his mother slapped him. And he has crossed the paths of some violent, dangerous men – street warriors who refused to give an inch of ground to an adversary. He became a member of the L.A. Crips at age nine, learning the rites, code of behavior, and the gang’s history. At age thirteen he became a “gang banger.” Learning how to fight, kill, and become totally committed to the gang.
“Gang life instills loyalty and solidarity,” Miller explained. “You maintain your individuality, but you learn that there is an absolute need to protect gang unity. We respect the individual needs of our members, but more than anything else we know that the solidarity of our gang must come first.”
Known as Gangsta B (“we take our gang names from our surname”), Miller had been shot six times and stabbed another seven. His massive tattooed body was pockmarked with battle scars. He had survived running gun battles in the streets and vicious knife fights in prison – always advancing, pressing the attack in the face of death.
“I fear death,” Miller said. “That’s natural. But I fear no man who can inflict it on me – the fear of another man is unnatural to me.”
How does a nine-year-old become a gang member in East L.A.?
“He’s a product of his environment,” Miller explained. “Heroes in the ‘Hood’ are the drug dealers, the gangstas. They have the money, women, cars, and respect. It’s about respect – respect is power. ‘Hood’ youngsters want that status; the respect that goes with it. I don’t expect people outside this environment to understand it. You know, we don’t live for, or care much about, the outside culture. They have their values, and their way of life. We really don’t give a fuck how the social liberals or the Christian right judge us – the ‘Hood’ is our world. We respect the people, the life forces, and the values that matter to our survival. I respect the mother who sells her body to feed her kids more than some Bible-thumping fundamentalist talking about human suffering serving God’s purpose. God didn’t put coke in the ‘Hood’ – the CIA did.”
Miller’s gaze is steady, intense. The muscles in his jaw tighten. There is no apology in the man’s demeanor.
“Look, we don’t get to choose the hand life gives us,” he continues. “I don’t expect life to give me a quarter and I’m not giving it one. I’ve made some hard choices in life and I accepted all the consequences of those choices. I’ve killed men. The Old Testament condemns my soul to hell. So be it. I did what I had to do at that moment to survive. I’ve kidnapped, tortured, stole, robbed, and sold drugs – I’ve spent twelve years in some badass prisons. I’m not about to whine about my life choices. I deal with it as it is, on my terms. I will always protect and remain true to my Cripping – and that means living under the gun 24-7 in the ‘Hood’.”
Respect for his Cripping is an essential component in Miller’s character. It defines his philosophy on life – a matter he takes with utmost seriousness.
“I will communicate with other races,” he explained, “but I will always ride with my ‘homies’ first. I will never let myself get so close or too committed to anyone outside of my family that could possibly cause conflict with my Cripping.”
“Crips” is an acronym for “Community Revolutionized in Progress.” The gang was established in the late 1960s by Stanley “Tookie” Williams and Raymond Washington. Williams was put to death in California in 2005. Some of the gang’s heroes are Booker T, Big T, Morty, and a host of others. Their names are as well known and revered in the Crip Hood as Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are known and revered in the Deep South.
Bitter rivals of the East L.A. Crips are the East Coast Crips. The two gangs have been feuding for years. It’s a violent feud whose origin is no longer relevant. It only matters that the feud be maintained with honor and ferocity.
During his two decades of gang-banging – shootouts with cops, prison riots, and killing East Coast Crips and Bloods – Miller married LaRhonda who blessed him with three children: Lil’ Brian, Rashaun, and Tienery. He is devoted to his family.
“I saw my father only once,” Miller said. “I’m not bitter about that. The dude made his choice. I was close to my mother – she was always ‘Alice’ to me, like a sister. She instilled the value of family in me. Our home was not much, but Alice always kept it clean and filled with love. I was never abused, and I was never deprived of anything that Alice could give me.”
Miller promised LaRhonda that Lil’ Brian would never be part of a gang.
“I will never let Lil’ Brian be part of the gang environment,” he says. “I will see to it that he stays active in positive things – church, sports, education, and work. I will teach him how to be a man without being a gang member – how to carry himself so that other men respect him. I am going to instill the same values of family that Alice gave us. I want him to always know what the responsible thing to do is.”
Miller understands that the course of his life has been permanently chartered by choices he made long ago. He doesn’t spare time thinking about where his life would have gone had it not been for those choices. What he does focus on is the determination to make sure his son will never feel compelled to make similar choices.
“I’m his father,” Miller explained. “This day and every day. My family comes first – before me, before anything or anyone else. I cannot rationalize, or even explain to them the choices I made in life. My children will one day know about gangs like most people do, but they will never truly know what Cripping means. I will never let them know what it means. They will have the knowledge and education that will bring them a quality life – not those street experiences that teach nothing more than how to survive. I want my children to learn how to live, not survive.”
Brian “Gangsta’ B” Miller is an enigma. In one moment in life he could stand tall, and be as violent as necessary, in a street battle with the East Coast Crips and in another moment engage in an affectionate father-son talk with Lil’ Brian.
“The most important thing a father can do is teach his son how to be a responsible man,” Miller said. “My father was not there to do that for me – that’s the nature of the beast. Alice did what she could – she taught me right from wrong, and how to survive. And, God knows, I love her for that. I’m Lil’ Brian’s father – I owe him more. I don’t want my son to be a gangsta’ or a homie – I want him to be a man.”
Brian Miller is not a religious man, but he does believe in God.
“God has a purpose for each of us,” he says. “He put me here to help others. I know that sounds strange considering the nature of my life, my ‘stats’ as a gangsta’. But even when I was selling drugs and taking down money from crime, I helped others – family, friends, and the families of my homies. The desire to help others was in my heart. I may have strayed but I never forgot all those Sunday school classes Alice took me to.”
Gangsta’ B understands the power of God. The dark side of life has at times brought him to his knees.
“God brings us all to our knees at some point in life,” he said. “He makes us accountable for what we do – and he will make us repent for the wrongs we do. I once believed that everything I did was legal – the killings, the drugs, all of it. It was right for the gang. But I know now, and really knew it then, that what I was doing was wrong. No matter what creed we live by, we do not live in a moral vacuum. Every time I violated, either the laws of man or someone else’s interest, I knew it was wrong. I experienced guilt – so when I did wrong, it was a conscious decision to do that wrong. But more often than not, I felt I had to do the wrong – it was a matter of personal survival, or it served the interests of Cripping, or it was a matter of my own honor. But it was always like Alice was sitting on my shoulder, saying ‘do what you have to do, Brian, but know that it is wrong’. Alice has always been my moral compass and God has always been my judge.”
Miller has not received a “born again” spiritual awakening. He has not turned over some proverbial “new leaf” in life. He was, is, and always be a Crip. But he is a man who understands the real meaning of individual choice. He knows that a certain course in his life was chartered by a fatherless home and other environmental influences of the “Hood” but he is a soul with a free will. That’s why he strives for entrepreneurial success in life. He was the founder and owner of the In II Deep record label. He wants to make this business a source of legitimate income. He wants to follow the path paved by Death Row Records founder Suge Knight, although he does not immolate Knight.
“I was in the penitentiary with Suge Knight,” Gangsta’ B said. “The Suge Knight I knew in prison did not match the media image portrayed of Suge Knight. Let me put it this way – the street people, the real gang-bangers, know who’s who and what’s what with our people.”
Brian Miller was released from the California prison system in 1998. He returned to Louisiana where he had a large, and politically prominent, family in New Orleans. He brought the Crip life with him. He was arrested in 1999 on a drug-related attempted murder and aggravated kidnapping charge. While he would ultimately beat the New Orleans charge, he picked up a possession of cocaine charge in adjacent Jefferson Parish. He posted a million dollar bond on the drug charge and returned to California where he was convicted of another gang-related shooting. He was extradited back to Jefferson Parish in 2002 to face the cocaine charge.
Miller had been in Louisiana in 1998 for only a short time before area law enforcement authorities targeted him as a major California gang-connected drug dealer. They kept him under constant surveillance, especially the Jefferson Parish apartment he maintained. There was an unusually high volume of human traffic through the apartment, prompting the police to keep it under surveillance. Even after Miller was arrested in 1999 on the attempted murder and aggravated kidnapping charges, the police maintained their surveillance. They observed Azienell Holmes, Miller’s mother-in-law, enter the apartment. She attracted the police’s attention.
Miller’s wife had sent her mother to the apartment to pick up some medicine for the Miller baby. Holmes decided to help herself to some money and other things in the apartment, including a vacuum cleaner. When Holmes exited the apartment carrying the vacuum cleaner, the police moved in and arrested her. A search of the vacuum cleaner discovered more than 400 grams of cocaine.
The police and local prosecutors did not want Holmes. She was not a drug user or a dealer. They offered her a “deal” she couldn’t refuse: turn State’s evidence, testifying that Miller sent her to the apartment to retrieve the vacuum cleaner, or face a long stretch in prison. Holmes took the deal. Jefferson Parish prosecutors charged Miller with possession and intent to distribute the 400 grams of cocaine.
The state convicted Holmes with the perjured testimony of two witnesses: Holmes and the lead detective in the case. It cost him twenty-five thousand dollars to hire New Orleans attorney Robert Glass to represent him. Miller waived a jury trial, electing to have the case tried by a judge. After hearing the evidence, the judge said he believed Holmes went to the apartment to get the vacuum cleaner with the drugs and not to pick up medicine for the Miller baby. The judge, however, had serious reservations about the rest of the case.
“Now,” the judge said, “whether or not he [Miller] spoke to Miss Holmes and told her to go there – Mr. Miller – whether or not Mr. Miller spoke to Miss Holmes on the phone from the jail and told her to go there as she said, or whether or not he communicated with some other family member who communicated with Miss Holmes and told her to go there to get that vacuum cleaner that contained the cocaine, I am not sure.”
The judge then criticized prosecutors for giving Holmes what he called a “sweetheart deal.”
“I believe she was culpable,” he said. “I believe she was responsible for possessing the cocaine, and I believe she gets a free ride on this.”
The judge made it clear that he believed Holmes lied on the witness stand; that she had been completely impeached by the many prior inconsistent statements she had made. Glass established for the record that the lead detective had lied under oath about his long history of fabricating police reports and his disciplinary problems.
The prosecutors could not produce any evidence other than Holmes’ testimony that Miller called her from jail and instructed her to go get the vacuum cleaner with the drugs. There was no physical evidence to connect him to that 400 grams of cocaine. He was in the Orleans Parish prison. It was established that a number of people had access and frequented the apartment after Miller’s arrest. The police did not have probable cause to search the apartment. They chose to arrest Holmes only after they saw her removing items from the apartment, including the vacuum cleaner. They had no information that she went to the apartment to pick up drugs. They simply discovered the 400 grams of cocaine in the search of what they suspected to be “stolen property.”
The judge, nonetheless, found Miller guilty of attempted possession of the cocaine. How? Why?
“I know without any question or doubt in my mind,” the judge explained, “that Miss Holmes received information, information which I believe emanated from Mr. Miller while he was in custody, that was relayed to Miss Holmes for the purpose of going to that particular apartment to get that vacuum cleaner because they had drugs in there.”
The judge came to this conclusion based on his belief that “after Mr. Miller is arrested and taken off the streets and brought to the lockup, a phone call is made and someone who is close to him or related to him, more particularly, his mother-in-law, goes to that house and removes that vacuum cleaner.
“There is no question in my mind that Mr. Miller had control of these premises. And the question is: Does Mr. Miller knowingly and intentionally possess more than 400 grams of cocaine? I am not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he did knowingly and intentionally possess 400 grams or more of cocaine. What I am convinced of it that it was his intention or it was his desire to possess the 400 grams or more of cocaine. I am also convinced that he made the phone call to bring Miss Holmes into the picture to go and remove the drugs.”
The judge found that there was not credible evidence that the drugs removed from the apartment belonged to Miller. But the judge found Miller guilty of attempted possession of the drugs because he believed Miller had in someway conveyed information to Holmes to go pick up the vacuum cleaner. The prosecution alleged that the information was conveyed to Holmes by Miller during a conversation over a prison telephone but the judge was not convinced that such a conversation took place.
The prosecution’s entire case was based on that alleged telephone call between Miller and Holmes – and the only evidence it had to offer that the call occurred was Holmes’ testimony. The judge rejected that testimony, but concluded without any factual evidence that Miller had in some other way communicated information to Holmes to retrieve the vacuum cleaner.
A judge is not suppose to convict a criminal defendant based on what he believes or assumes but on “evidence.” Once the judge rejected Holmes’ testimony about the alleged telephone call, there was simply no evidence that Miller “attempted” to possess the cocaine.
Miller’s case was never about “evidence.” It was about a politically-motivated prosecutorial objective of putting a major “Los Angeles Crips gang-banger and drug dealer” in a Louisiana prison. The political mileage achieved from that conviction was more important than the harm caused by putting an innocent man in prison.
Did Brain Miller ever sell drugs?
Yes.
Did Brian Miller ever commit serious crimes against society?
Yes.
“I’ve had the money and good life from drugs and crime,” he said. “And, yes, there’s also the violence that goes with it – the intimidation, kidnapping, even the killings of the witnesses against the gang. Drugs and crime in the ‘Hood’ is about violence – street violence. That’s our turf, our battle ground. We don’t do upscale bank robberies or knock off service stations. If we do a bank robbery, you know we’re from the ‘Hood’ - not the Silicon Valley.”
Did the 400 grams of cocaine belong to Miller?
“No,” he said. “If you asked if I sold cocaine, I would say ‘yes,’ or if you asked if I had drugs at that time, I would say ‘fucking right’. But the cocaine in that vacuum cleaner – and I’m assuming the cops actually found coke in the damn thing – was not mine. And I damn sure did not tell my mother-in-law to go get any drugs for me. I told my wife that some medicine I bought for the baby was at the apartment. That’s it.”
Miller makes a good case. There was no evidence that he personally told Holmes, or instructed anyone else to tell her, to go to the apartment to pick up drugs.
“The D.A. wanted an L.A. gang member,” Miller said. “I was in jail. How could I possess the dope? A lot of people had access to that apartment. The cops knew that. Then they saw my mother-in-law show up and start removing shit that don’t belong to her. They bust her and find drugs. They jam her up. That’s was not hard. She had never been in trouble. They tell her they want me for the dope. She took the deal and walked.”
After the judge found Miller guilty of attempted possession of the cocaine, the prosecution charged him as an “habitual offender” – Louisiana’s equivalent of California’s “three strikes” law. He was sentenced life without parole, but an appeals court threw out that sentence. The judge was forced to re-sentence him to fifteen years.
Miller was sent to the Phelps Correctional Center – a medium security facility in Southwest Louisiana. PCC is unlike any of the California prisons where he had served time – places like Chino, Milcreek Delano, and Wasco.
“We lived under gang politics in those Southern California prisons,” Miller said. “There was racial and gang separation – we didn’t smoke or drink behind whites or Mexicans. We lived under the gang 24/7 – we always had conflict, killings, and violence. That’s why I believe in racial and gang segregation – you can’t force us to live together.
“I will communicate with other races, but I will always ride with my homies. I will never get too close to anyone, white or Mexican, that would cause me to disrespect my Cripping.”
Miller immediately encountered adjustment problems at PCC, making eleven trips to the disciplinary cellblock during the first few months after his arrival.
“This prison is a joke,” he explained. “They talk about how ‘safe’ it is here. Hell, yeah, it’s safe here – look at the kind of inmates and guards you have here. There’s only a handful of inmates here who could make it in Chino or Milcreek – the rest would be ‘bitches’ washing clothes. The same for the guards – these ‘crackers’ and ‘Toms’ couldn’t work in a real prison. They couldn’t deal with the way gangs ‘get down’ in Chino and Milcreek.”
Miller saved his harshest criticism for African-American inmates.
“Man, it blew me fucking away,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. These dudes are straight-out ‘Uncle Toms’. They still live with the slave mentality. They rat and suck-ass like it’s legal. They’re afraid of the Man – the free folks could probably fuck ‘em if they wanted to.”
Miller pauses, looking out across the expansive 56-man dormitory. Two inmates quietly play chess while four boisterously play dominoes.
“There’s a few Bloods here,” he said. “They know I’m a Crip. We rap some – not much. There’s no war to fight here. I asked one the other day if he knew what the word ‘Blood’ meant. He couldn’t tell me. He’s part of a group, and he doesn’t even know what they stand for, what they represent. If he told a real, true Blood that he’s a Blood, they would kill him.”
While Gangsta’ B maintains utmost loyalty to his Cripping, he doesn’t see the same kind of gang commitment in Louisiana.
“The gangs in New Orleans,” he explained, “too often kill for no reason – senseless, stupid killings. Initiation shit. We got our stats doing our enemies. Yes, we killed some innocent people – when you go after an enemy, and I mean a real enemy, his family and friends are all targets.”
Byron is a good example. The 13-year-old was riding his bike in a gang-infested area of East Los Angeles in October 2004. A car pulled up and shot the kid off the bike. Bryon was not part of any gang and didn’t have on any gang colors. The two gunmen got out of the car, stood over the wounded youngster, and pumped nineteen bullets into his face.
“Bryon’s family must have been gang,” Miller said after reading the New York Times account of the killing, “or someone in his family did something to a gang. That was a message killing – if I can’t get you right now, I’ll get your family until I get you. And they will eventually get whoever was connected to Bryon that forced them to kill him.”
And the brutal child killing could have originated from prison.
“Something as simple as a ‘dis’,” Miller explained, ‘or something as serious as a drug rip-off in prison. Gangs are so together that a revenge killing can take place in prison because of something that happened in the free world or vice versa.”
The Sicilian mafia, and its American-produced crime families, have always used “contract killings” as a way to settle scores, to send a violent message, or to perpetuate a vendetta.
“We don’t do contract killings per se,” Miller said. “A gang-banger may do a killing for a fee but it’s generally gang-related. We don’t need hired guns – we pack our own pieces and take care of our own business. That’s what I mean when I say I ‘ride with my homies’. When you do something to a homie, you do it to me – that’s our creed. And if violence comes with the deal – you know, the only the issue can be settled – then we will do if. If I see the motherfucker who hurt my homie, I’ll take him out – in prison or in the free world. Makes no difference.”
An argument erupts at the nearby domino table.
“Hold the noise,” the dorm guard barks.
The human traffic around the dorm is casual. But Miller’s eyes monitor all the movements and his instincts stay tune to the sounds. He is a shark – the rest of the world are fish.
“When people stand together,” Miller said, “they must have a creed, a code of behavior that keeps them united. The creed can be in writing like the Jaycees or it can be understood through behavior. Our creed is expressed in behavior, in our actions as Crips. Violence is acceptable to our creed – if it necessary. The more ruthless the environment, the more necessary the violence.”
This gang mentality, and its violent creed, prompted the California prison system nearly thirty years ago to adopt a policy of segregating by race all new inmates and those inmates transferred from one facility to another. The segregation period was for sixty days.
In November 2004 a California assistant attorney general defended the segregation practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“California is ground zero for race-based streets gangs,” he argued. “The animosity between the gangs is purely race based, and he racial pressures in prison are very, very severe.”
The Supreme Court rejected the argument, ruling the practice unconstitutional.
But the attorney general was right. Virtually every aspect of prison life is governed by race. That reality emerged the moment prisons chose to integrate. The influx of gangs into the nation’s prison systems has dramatically escalated the pressures of racism. In many state prisons – such as California, Texas, Illinois and Florida – gang affiliation is virtually a prerequisite to survival. PCC did not have that problem.
“PCC is a popcorn prison,” Miller said. “It’s like comparing a BB gun to an AK-47. I’ve had to make some big time adjustments in my thinking just to stay out of trouble here. I played the ‘block’ when I first got here but I now occupy my time and keep my mental energy focused on chess, reading, working out, and writing.”
Miller’s eyes harden as his eyes lock on the point he is making.
“Don’t take that for weakness,” he says. “Any inmate or guard who disrespects me, I will deal with him. I have to protect myself from what I will do – not from what any man may do to me. I’ve got some big money invested in three lawyers working on my appeal. I’m about rolling out of this shit-hole. I’ve got a good family and a business to return to.”
Miller indeed commands a wide turf of respect at PCC. He doesn’t impose either his views or will on others. He simply makes his presence known. A large, heavy muscled man with a tattooed body, he is a natural leader whose casual, though disciplined demeanor imposes his strength on others.
“In Chino and Milcreek,” he said, “I protected my self and my homies in any manner the situation demanded. Here I insulate myself – I avoid the free folks. I don’t need a situation where I have to ‘go off’ on some cracker with laced-up combat boots he can’t see because of a gumbo belly. I carefully select the dudes I associate with. They’re good people – we share the same values. I stay away from the Toms, the playas, and the wannabe gangstas. Most of these motherfuckers are so stupid they don’t even know their ass is pointed to the ground.”
Miller’s views about the nation’s political system are cut from the same pattern as his gang philosophy.
“If you’re rich and white,” he said, “you’re alright. If you’re rich and black, you have a slim chance. If you are poor and white, you also have a slim chance. But if you are poor and black, you have no chance.
“Politics are corrupt. Bush stole the election from Al Gore. Now he’s getting innocent kids killed fighting a war his ole man didn’t want to win. And he’s doing it in the name of ‘terror’. Let me tell you what terror is – children in this country starving and prostituting their bodies to survive. These children face terror every day – where is their ‘homeland security?’
“Bush wants to find missing weapons in Iraq. Fuck, his own FBI can’t even find missing children in this country. He could care less that children in America deal with terror each day because of his ‘compassionate conservatism’. His policies promote war against nations rather than against poverty; tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of educating the poor; and worships a Christian faith that condemns all others to hell.”
Miller smiles.
“Hey, I’m not the political messenger here,” he said. “I just understand power. George Bush poses the greatest threat of terror to the people of this country, and the world, than Osama bin Laden ever could.”
Miller’s smile turns almost playful.
“God, I can hear all those tight-assed evangelicals sucking air and fartin’ all over the place after hearing that,” he said, “but I don’t pretend to be the Los Angeles Times. I say exactly what I think – and I don’t much give a fuck about the judgment any man may pass on me. I’m a Crip, baby – always dressed in the colors. It is at it is.”
That is Brian “Gangsta’ B” Miller – in the raw. Whatever else may be said of him, he is a man of true colors. He talks the talk, and he walks the walk. He is truly a real gangsta’.

Written by Billy Wayne Sinclair

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