Derrick Miller (born 1983/1984)[1] is a former US Army National Guardsman sergeant who was sentenced in 2011 to life in prison with the chance of parole for the murder of an Afghan civilian during a battlefield interrogation.
He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Justice for Warriors Caucus and Military Adviser to Texas Republican U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert.
[8] On his third tour of duty, for which he had volunteered, Miller was assigned to a Connecticut National Guard unit, and attached to the US Army's 101st Airborne Division.
[1][5][10][6] Miller was on a combat mission in a Taliban-controlled area in Masamute Bala, in Laghman Province, in north-eastern Afghanistan on September 26, 2010.
[4][8] Miller said that during the battlefield interrogation the suspect, who he believed was an insurgent, tried to grab his 9 mm Beretta handgun, and that he shot the man in self-defense.
[1][14][6] A platoon sergeant testified that as a result of the interrogation of the suspect the unit came to believe that a Taliban attack was imminent and heightened its security, and that within an hour the unit was in fact attacked, with the sergeant crediting Miller's interrogation of the man with saving the lives of American soldiers, his lawyer said.
[14] After under three hours of deliberation, a 10-member jury of military members at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, convicted him in July 2011, finding him guilty of premeditated murder of a civilian.