Further details are emerging in the case of Royce Miller, murderer of Lincoln High School senior Maxina Danner, who is anticipating release having been granted parole by the California Board of Parole Hearings.
It transpires that the San Francisco District Attorney’s office backed Miller’s bid for release at his October hearing, squarely opposing the views of the 17-year-old victim’s family who testified in detail about the crime and rejected suggestions that her killer was safe to be freed.
A newly-released transcript shows the presiding commissioner acknowledge the extraordinary nature of a District Attorney’s representative failing to oppose a grant of parole.
“I’ve reviewed the file and I’ve sat and listened to Mr Miller,” said Assistant District Attorney Alex Bernstein during the hearing. “He shows a good deal of having been chastened by what he’s done and shows contrition. We cannot know how sincere he is, but I believe that he is.”
“If parole is granted today, the system will inflict its final injury,” said Maxina’s sister Andrea Weltman. “I will have lost not only my sister, but also my sense of peace and security.”
“He beat her. He tasered her. He chased her down, and he strangled to death a scared little girl in pajamas. And he did so for no reason at all…And then he called his friends to stuff her into a trunk and throw her on the side of the road like trash.”
At the hearing Miller, 40, admits responsibility for the notorious 2004 murder and to having lied at his trial and at his appeal as he tried to frame a friend for the crime. Family members of the victim accused him of still being dishonest about Maxina’s death and expressed their concern he would offend again.
At the conclusion of the four hour session Commissioner Lawrence Nwajei and Deputy Commissioner Patrick Reardon announced their decision to grant Miller parole.
Unless Governor Gavin Newsom intervenes, Miller will leave San Quentin prison when the Board’s ‘decision review unit’ completes a mandatory check for legal or factual errors in its determination. Newsom, who was San Francisco’s mayor at the time of Maxina’s death – and visited her school to console her bereft classmates – can modify or reverse parole decisions in murder cases.
“It was beyond anger…It was rage.”
Royce Miller
Described by Nwajei as “a somewhat different narrative of the truth than the last panel heard” in 2018, Miller laid out his new version of how the events of September 27 2004 unfolded.
According to Miller, he had known Maxina for just over six months but their friendship was not intimate. He and a friend picked her up in a stolen car and drove around Hunters Point before ending up at his house. It was the first time the teen had visited the home.
He said he had earlier been drinking and taking powdered cocaine.
Maxina was trying to get him to help her get some jewelry back – her grandfather’s ring – which had apparently found its way in to the hands of people who ought not to have it.
He didn’t know who had it, he told the hearing, but falsely led her to believe he did and could help.
They arrived at his home and they began to argue, he said, as Maxina realized that he was “shining her on” and was not going to assist.
“I had no intention whatsoever of helping her with the jewelry,” Miller said.
The argument, he said, got worse to the point they were yelling at each other at which point, according to Miller, “it got physical”.
“She pushed me, she hit me first and I pushed her back.”
Miller said Maxina hit him, probably with her open hand, and he pushed her back. Argument and insults ensued – “I said things that I wish I hadn’t said” – and Maxina hit him again.
Miller then struck her in the mouth and choked her to death with a martial arts belt.
“It was beyond anger,” Miller said. “It was, it was, it was rage.”
“[I] knew that I wanted to cause her as much pain as I possibly could in that moment. And that’s what I set out to do.”
He told the Board that he knew that she was dead immediately.
Miller said he dragged Maxina’s body to the garage, left the home in order to procure cocaine and marijuana, and then went to work. Later he enlisted the help of two associates to dispose of the body.
“[We] drove to where I felt like we can dispose of Maxina’s dead body, which was McLaren Park, ‘cause growing up, I used to always hear about how there were bodies found there.”
“I put her in the middle of the road,” he told the Board.
Miller was not arrested for the murder for five months.
“In those five months, you must have thought you got away with murder?” asked Nwajei.
“Yes, sir, I did,” Miller replied.
By his own admission Miller lied to everyone about his involvement in the crime.
“My mother, my grandmother, my father, Patrick Thomas’s mother. Everybody that heard about it and cared about me, yes, I lied to them. My community. Yes. Lied to everyone.”
Miller accepted that he had been involved in forbidden prison activity in the past, saying he had bought a cellphone, turned a blind eye to drug sales, drunk alcohol and passed gang-related messages. More recently he had been housed in an ‘honor unit’ for inmates who are participating in programs, education or prison work.
During the hearing Miller was probed about several aspects of his thinking about the crime and about his preparations for leaving prison should he be granted parole. Deputy Commissioner Reardon led a lengthy discussion about the inmate’s understanding of domestic violence – including, to Miller’s evident confusion, a reference to “white privilege” being one of the motivating factors for it that must be addressed.
“[P]arole suitability is to be determined on whether or not Mr Miller would pose an unreasonable danger to the community, not what is fair.”
Assistant District Attorney Alex Bernstein
Before the victim family members were afforded the opportunity to speak, San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Alex Bernstein weighed-in: reminding commissioners that decisions on release were based on public safety considerations.
“[P]arole suitability is to be determined on whether or not Mr Miller would pose an unreasonable danger to the community, not what is fair,” he said.
“In 19 years of the time he’s been in custody, he does not appear to be the person he was at the time of his life crime. He has expressed responsibility and remorse. He has not committed violence while he’s been in custody.”
“I’ve reviewed the ‘C’ file and I’ve sat and listened to Mr Miller. He shows a good deal of having been chastened by what he’s done and shows contrition. We cannot know how sincere he is, but I believe he is.”
“I have some understanding of the pain this causes to victim and victim’s next of kin. This is in no way intended to minimize their pain, their loss, or to say that what occurred is now deemed to be okay.”
Bernstein went on to say that if, as it appears, Miller’s post-incarceration plans include living in Sonoma County (“a place away from San Francisco”) then he would not be a danger to the community, presumably referring to that part of the community living in San Francisco.
“If parole is granted today, the system will inflict its final injury, and I will have lost not only my sister, but also my sense of peace and security.”
Andrea Weltman
Toward the end of the hearing, the Board heard from the family of the victim who were of one mind that Miller was not telling the truth, still, and had not been rehabilitated.
“He has tried to rationalize his violence by claiming that she threatened him and hit him,” Maxina’s sister Andrea Weltman told the hearing. “But the reality is that she was a terrified little girl.”
“She had tried to get away as evidenced by the two grab marks that were found on her body, and it simply defies belief that Mr Miller felt threatened by her. He beat her. He tasered her. He chased her down, and he strangled to death a scared little girl in pajamas. And he did so for no reason at all.”
“And then he called his friends to stuff her into a trunk and throw her on the side of the road like trash.”
“If parole is granted today, the system will inflict its final injury, and I will have lost not only my sister, but also my sense of peace and security.”
Weltman pointed out that during his trial and throughout his appeal Miller had accused his associate, Maurice Powell, of the murder.
“He did everything he could to get away with my sister’s murder, and then to get out of jail following his conviction, knowing he was guilty, he lied and manipulated over and over again claiming he was innocent. And now he is doing everything he can to get out of jail, claiming rehabilitation.”
“We are hearing for the first time, ever, about a relationship between them. But the truth is they barely knew each other. She didn’t even know his real name. There was nothing at stake that night. They had some trivial argument and he killed her.”
Of her efforts to advocate against Miller’s release she told the Board that “[…] I will continue to for as long as I have to, to prevent another family from feeling this pain.”
Addressing the Commissioners, Maxina’s brother-in-law Jeremy Weltman also highlighted the discrepancies between what Miller claims to have happened and the evidence presented at trial.
Mr Weltman said that Maxina wasn’t just hit once, as Miller had said. Her body had multiple injuries, there was blood over her t-shirt and blanket and grab marks on her wrist and calf.
“I didn’t hear any details of the crime…I didn’t hear anything about grabbing her as she tried to run away from him. I didn’t hear anything about tasing her. I heard a minimalist version of ‘I jabbed her in the mouth, that’s all I did, oh, and then I killed her.’ All I heard today, Mr Miller, is the regurgitation of the programming you’re taught in jail.”
“I find it a little bit curious that we are downplaying the fact that he had a risk assessment that came back as a moderate risk for violence. Is this the level we’re looking at now?”
He suggested that Miller gave his cellphone to his friend Maurice Powell in order to make him a “scapegoat” for the murder. Mr Weltman told the Board that he understood that the law in California requires giving ‘young offenders’ a meaningful chance at securing parole, but that it was not warranted in this instance.
“I do not believe Mr Miller has changed,” said Maxina’s mother Lori Shea. “He is putting on an act and Maxina would be turning over in her grave right now if she saw what he has put us through. No family should have to go through this.”
The Board also heard from Maxina’s aunt and grandfather who each opposed Miller’s release.
“The district attorney representative stood up and said he does not oppose a grant. It doesn’t happen often. And I commend him for that because he’s a lawyer…[a]nd he looked at the evidence and he saw we applied [the law] as we are sworn to.”
Commissioner Lawrence Nwajei
Following a 40 minute recess the Board returned with their decision to grant parole.
“[B]ased on the legal standards and the evidence we considered,” said Nwajei, “we find that you do not pose an unreasonable risk to public safety.”
Nwajei observed that at 2023 risk assessment made by Dr Lori Montgomery found that Miller posed a “lower moderate” risk of future violence. He said that Miller had completed sufficient programs in CDCR custody to provide him with the personal skills to himself manage the risks. He also mentioned his violence-free term of incarceration.
“The district attorney representative stood up and said he does not oppose a grant,” said Nwajei also noted. “It doesn’t happen often. And I commend him for that because he’s a lawyer…[a]nd he looked at the evidence and he saw we applied [the law] as we are sworn to.”
Miller remains in San Quentin state prison awaiting a mandatory review of his parole decision by the Board’s ‘decision review unit’ – which checks all grants of parole for legal and factual accuracy – that must be completed by February 9 2024.
After that check, unless Governor Newsom exercises the authority he enjoys in cases of murder to modify or reverse parole decisions, he will be freed.
In 2022 Governor Newsom reversed decisions by the Board of Parole Hearings to parole murderers on 21 occasions. That year the Board held 4,445 hearings statewide, granting parole in 1,259 cases.
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