Hornets forward Brandon Miller is a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Jamea Harris, who was shot and killed in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Jan. 15.
Harris’s mother, Decarla Heard, filed the suit against Miller and two others Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama’s Western Division. The other two defendants—former Alabama men’s basketball forward Darius Miles and Michael Davis—previously were charged with capital murder and are awaiting trial.
Miller was not charged with a crime, although a police investigator testified Miller was present at the scene of the killing and retrieved the murder weapon from his car. Through his attorneys, Miller denied knowledge of what Miles intended to do with the weapon.
The Crimson Tide declined to discipline Miller for his alleged involvement in the events surrounding Harris’s death, a decision that was met with widespread criticism amid their best season by winning percentage since 1987. Miller was selected with the second pick of the NBA draft by Charlotte on June 22.
“Miles, Davis and Miller knew or should have known that bringing a dangerous weapon to a dispute and discharging said weapon would likely result in harm to those around them,” Heard’s lawyers write in the lawsuit.
The Hornets will open their season Wednesday against the visiting Hawks.
