Barry Mills was a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white-supremacist prison gang that began in the California prison system in the 1960s and spread through the state and federal systems. In July 2006 a federal jury in Santa Ana, California, convicted him of racketeering, conspiracy and murder. The murders of which he was convicted were committed inside federal institutions: the 1989 murder of a prisoner at a federal prison in California, and the 1997 deaths of two prisoners at a federal prison in Pennsylvania. Prosecutors argued that he had not carried out these acts himself but had directed them as one of the three members of the gang's governing Commission.
The case against him came from a 2002 indictment of 40 defendants that described 32 murders and attempted murders over about three decades. It was described at the time as one of the largest federal capital cases in the country. Mills faced the death penalty. The jury that convicted him could not agree on a sentence, and he was given life without the possibility of parole. He died in federal custody in Colorado on July 8, 2018, at the age of 70.
Barry Byron Mills was born on July 7, 1948, in Windsor, California. In 1969, at 21, he was convicted of robbery and sentenced to five years in a California state prison, where he joined the Aryan Brotherhood, organized a few years before his arrival. He was released in 1977, was then convicted in connection with a plan to rob a bank in Fresno, and received a sentence of 20 years in federal prison. In 1979 he was convicted in connection with an offense against a fellow inmate at a federal prison in Georgia. By about 1980 he had a seat on the gang's three-man commission. The Southern Poverty Law Center credited him with directing the gang's activities and with growing it from a few dozen members in one state prison to many thousands across state and federal prisons.
The court record that later reached the Ninth Circuit describes the gang's structure in detail. A three-person Council, elected by members, originally passed messages and kept track of the membership. In 1992 and 1993 the gang replaced it with a three-person Commission, and the Council continued to exist as an appointed body under the Commission's authority. The Commission decided major matters, including murder orders and gang wars, by majority vote. At each prison a member, preferably someone on the Council, managed the gang's affairs there and reported upward.
Mills had served on the first Council and was one of the three Commission members during most of the events at issue in the case. Tyler Bingham, who stood trial with him, was another. The prosecution's case was that the two ran the Commission from federal custody and that orders to kill, and orders to start a war with a rival gang of Black inmates, passed through them. At trial the gang's purpose was presented as protecting its drug dealing inside prisons through murder and intimidation.
In 2002 a federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned a ten-count indictment against 40 members and associates of the Aryan Brotherhood. It charged racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder, and murders and attempted murders in and outside federal prisons, together with drug offenses. The charges were brought under the federal racketeering statute, a law more often used against organized-crime families, and under the provision covering violent crimes committed in aid of racketeering. Mills was the lead defendant.
Of the 40 defendants, 19 pleaded guilty before trial and one died before it began. Eight faced the possibility of the death penalty, and prosecutors said they might seek it for eight more. The first trial involved four defendants: Mills, Bingham, Edgar Hevle and Christopher Gibson.
The convictions concerned three deaths. Arva Lee Ray died at a federal prison in California on August 9, 1989. Mills, Bingham and Hevle were convicted of his murder.
On August 28, 1997, two inmates, Frank Joyner and Abdul Salaam, died at a federal prison in Pennsylvania, in a clash that followed a gang order of war against a rival group, the D.C. Blacks. The Ninth Circuit record states that Mills received word in 1997 that the rival group had placed hits on gang members at another federal prison, and that he then sent Bingham a message that war was on and that the Pennsylvania prison should be notified. He was convicted over those deaths. A third inmate, Byron Ball, was the subject of a charge of attempted murder arising from the same day.
The jury also considered the death of William McKinney in 1993, a former member of the gang. Mills and Bingham were acquitted on that count. Hevle and Gibson were not charged in it.
The trial opened on March 14, 2006, before U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in Santa Ana. It was expected to last as long as nine months and ran for about four. The prosecution called at least twelve former gang members among its witnesses, as well as convicted killers and informants who described plots to punish members who broke the gang's rules. It also played recorded telephone calls and videos. The defense argued that prosecutors relied on a parade of perjurers who had been promised money and reduced sentences.
On Friday, July 28, 2006, after about two weeks of deliberation, the jury returned its verdicts. Mills and Bingham were found guilty of racketeering, murder and conspiracy. Mills, Bingham and Hevle were convicted of the murder of Arva Lee Ray. Hevle and Gibson were convicted of conspiring to murder the two inmates who died in Pennsylvania. Mills and Bingham were acquitted of the murder of William McKinney.
Because Mills and Bingham were eligible for the death penalty, the same jury was asked to decide between death and life imprisonment without parole. Their deliberations began in August and ran for about three and a half days before the jurors reported on a Thursday that they were deadlocked. The judge sent them back. On Friday, September 15, 2006, they told him in writing: "We are honestly and conscientiously unable to agree after a full consideration of the evidence." The vote on Mills was reported as 9 to 3 in favor of death, and on Bingham as 8 to 4 in favor of life.
Judge Carter declared a mistrial in the sentencing phase. The jury had made no death penalty decision for either man. That left life in prison without the possibility of parole as the sentence the law required for each of them.
Judge Carter sentenced Mills in November 2006 at the courthouse in Santa Ana, together with Bingham and Hevle. The sentencing hearing, first set for November 13, was reported on November 21 and 22. Mills received four consecutive life sentences, Bingham three and Hevle three. Gibson's sentencing was postponed. The judge said the sentences fit crimes "spanning well over 30 years of murder and organizational murder."
The Ninth Circuit decided the appeals of Bingham and Hevle on August 4, 2011. The court affirmed both men's convictions and their life sentences, and in doing so it rejected arguments about the evidence, the grand jury proceedings and the continuity of the gang under the 1993 restructuring. Mills was not a party to that appeal.
Mills died in federal custody in Colorado. He was found dead on Sunday, July 8, 2018, the day after his 70th birthday. The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed the death. The county coroner said there was no evidence of foul play. At his death he was serving four life terms.
The 2002 indictment alleged many more killings than the first trial resulted in convictions for. The gang was linked to "dozens of killings" nationwide; the verdicts against Mills covered the three deaths above, and the acquittal on the McKinney count stands as a verdict in his favor.
The defense position at trial was that the testimony came from witnesses who had been promised money and reduced sentences; the jury convicted on the counts above regardless.
July 7, 1948: Barry Byron Mills is born in Windsor, California.
1969: Convicted of robbery; sentenced to five years in a California state prison.
1977: Released; arrested later for a bank robbery plan in Fresno and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
1979: Convicted in connection with an offense against an inmate at a federal prison in Georgia.
August 9, 1989: Arva Lee Ray dies at a federal prison in California.
1992 to 1993: The gang sets up its three-member Commission.
August 28, 1997: Frank Joyner and Abdul Salaam die at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
2002: Federal grand jury returns a ten-count indictment against 40 defendants.
March 14, 2006: Trial of Mills, Bingham, Hevle and Gibson opens in Santa Ana.
July 28, 2006: Jury returns its verdicts; Mills acquitted of the McKinney murder.
September 15, 2006: Judge declares a mistrial in the sentencing phase after the jury deadlocks.
November 2006: Mills sentenced to life without parole, reported as four consecutive life terms.
August 4, 2011: Ninth Circuit affirms the convictions of Bingham and Hevle.
July 8, 2018: Mills dies in federal custody in Colorado, aged 70.