Riverside’s Lawyers in Tyisha Miller Lawsuit Ousted

RIVERSIDE — Attorneys defending the city of Riverside from a lawsuit charging that racism led police officers to shoot and kill a black woman have been thrown off the case by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin ruled Tuesday that the lawyers have a conflict of interest in the Tyisha Miller lawsuit because they once represented police officers accused in Miller’s December 1998 death.

The timing of the judge’s decision could be awkward, according to those close to the case.

Finding new lawyers to represent the city could delay a trial date and interrupt settlement negotiations, said the Rev. Bernell Butler, Miller’s cousin and a family spokesman. The city has offered the family more than $1 million, Butler said, but the family has asked for at least $10 million.

Skip Miller, a Century City attorney disqualified from the case along with the city attorney’s office, said Wednesday he only represented the police officers charged in the case in the early stages. Miller said he does not believe that constitutes enough of a conflict of interest to have him removed from the case, and that he may appeal the judge’s decision.

Butler, however, said he was pleased with the development, primarily because Skip Miller had been “playing hardball with a poor family.”

Tyisha Miller, 19, was slain by officers after they found her unresponsive in her parked car with a gun in her lap. The officers broke the car’s window to retrieve the gun, then shot her--in self-defense, they said--when she reached for the weapon.

The officers, who are white, were not prosecuted but were dismissed from the force.