Born in New York City, Miller received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1964 and a Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law in 1967.

On January 7, 1997, Miller was nominated by President Bill Clinton to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of California vacated by Gordon Thompson Jr. Miller was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 23, 1997, and received his commission on May 27, 1997.

[3] In 2005 he presided over a corruption case against San Diego City Councilmembers Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet.

In 2012 he heard the wrongful death civil suit in the case of the crash of a U.S. Marine jet in 2008, which killed four people in a residential area in San Diego.

The case used information gathered by a secret National Security Agency (NSA) program for collecting telephone metadata.