Willis Dance Miller (January 30, 1893 – December 20, 1960) was a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia from 1947 until hours before his death in 1960.
The first Virginia lawyer in the family line, Thomas M. Miller, received his license to practice from George Wythe and John Randolph in 1763, during the time of the French and Indian War.
The Justice's only child, also named Thomas M. Miller, was also a lawyer and had become a member of the State Corporation Commission shortly before his father's death.
[citation needed] Courts should continue "to adhere to precedent whenever reasonably possible and until departure is demanded by most compelling causes", he told the Virginia Bar Association in a 1953 speech.
Other aspects of the Stanley Plan were found unconstitutional by a three judge panel on the same day, January 19, 1959 (Robert E. Lee's birthday, a state holiday in Virginia), and by the U.S. Supreme Court after Miller's death.
[2][3] Justice Miller died in a Richmond hospital of a heart attack just hours after retiring from office, which allowed his surviving wife to receive a pension.