40 years after girl's murder in Alabama, Millicans take fight to voters

Almost 17 years after Lisa Ann Millican, 13, was raped and murdered, her family was told to prepare: The state soon would set an execution date for the woman a DeKalb County jury had convicted of brutally killing Lisa.

Instead, the family got a "complete sucker punch" from then-Gov. Fob James, Cassie Millican said. A few days before leaving office in 1999, James commuted Judith Ann Neelley's death sentence to life in prison. Alabama laws at the time meant not only would Neelley escape execution, but she would also be eligible for parole.

Cassie Millican is married to Lisa Ann Millican's brother, Calvin, and has become a spokesperson for the family as it has fought to prevent other victims' families from being left out of such decisions. Their advocacy has led to Amendment 3, which appears statewide on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

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Amendment 3 would require a governor who stops an execution or commutes a death sentence to notify the attorney general and make a "reasonable effort" to contact a victim's family, using the information provided by the attorney general. If the governor does not make these notifications, the reprieve or commutation of the sentence would be void.

Such a notification would give a victim's family the opportunity to raise objections. Millican said it also would give families a chance to go to the media — to make the public aware of their opposition, and if the public shares it, to put pressure on the governor to change the decision.

It's something the Millican family never had the chance to do. The governor's decision in the Neelley case, Cassie Millican believes, was a "cowardly" one — made when he wouldn't have to answer for it to voters or the family. It left the family to worry that Neelley will one day be released from prison. They've had to oppose her parole in one hearing already, she said. Another is slated for next year, she said.

"It just looms over us," Millican said. "This whole year, we're dreading next year." In addition to her husband and their children, Lisa Ann has sisters and her mother who must relive the horror of what happened to the girl in 1982.

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Days of torture, a painful death

Lisa Ann Millican was lured from a Georgia mall on Sept. 25, 1982, and subjected to rape and abuse from Alvin and Judith Neelley. According to court testimony, Judith Neelley injected Millican multiple times with drain cleaner to kill her. When that failed, she shot the girl in the back and pushed her from a cliff into Little River Canyon in Fort Payne.

Alvin Neelley was not tried in the Millican case. He pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated assault in another case in Georgia. He died in prison in 2005.

Judith Neelley was convicted of capital murder. Jurors recommended a life sentence for the 18-year-old mother of three, but the judge imposed the death penalty. She was on death row till the commutation in January 1999.

Alabama lawmakers later passed a law that in effect sentenced Neelley to life in prison, but Neelley sued and the law was ruled unconstitutional. Neelley is currently incarcerated at Alabama Therapeutic Education Facility in Columbiana.

Amendment 3 'not stepping on [governor's] toes'

Cassie Millican said her family is well aware that Amendment 3 would not change what they face regarding Neelley's sentence.

"We just want to prevent any other family from having to go what we have," she said.

Cassie Millican said she worked with Gov. Kay Ivey's team, and the governor has no problem with the requirements the amendment would make for governors.

"This is not stepping on her toes at all," Millican said; it does not alter the governor's ability to grant reprieves or commute sentences — providing notification is made.

Commutations are not a common occurrence; James is the only Alabama governor to have commuted a death sentence since executions resumed in 1983.

State Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, was the primary sponsor of the bill.

"No one has objected to the amendment," she said, and it has the support of the attorney general's office.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Alabama voters to say if victims must be notified of sentence reprieve