Thomas Miller-El is an African-American, born on April 16, 1951 in San Augustine, Texas.

Thomas was sentenced to death in 1986. He was on Texas Death Row (DR) from 1986 to 2005. Within this period, he received 11 executions dates.

On June 13, 2005, the US Supreme Court (S.C) ruled, with 6 votes against 3, that during the 1986 jury selection in Thomas' case, the prosecution had been using flagrant racial discrimination techniques, thus violating his rights and the Constitution (see here the opinion of the Supreme Court). Hence, Thomas' death sentence was set aside by the US Supreme Court and on August 29th, 2005 he was removed from death row to be transferred to the Dallas County jail. On May 12, 2008, he was moved to the Wynne Unit in Huntsville.

Thomas' case (Miller-El vs. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322 (2003); Miller-El vs. Dretke 545 U.S. 231 (2005)) is now taught in most American law schools and universities and is cited in numerous law books (see for example "America's Courts and the Criminal Justice System" by David W. Neubauer, 2008, pages 297 and 389, Thomson Wadsworth; or "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander, 2010, p. 118, The New Press).