Killer, Twice Convicted, Due Parole Hearing
A tentative parole hearing date has been set for Booker T. Hillery, who was sentenced just last month on his second conviction of murdering a teen-age Hanford girl nearly 25 years ago.
Because he has been in prison so long, Hillery immediately became eligible for a parole hearing after he was sentenced to life on his new conviction in the March, 1962, scissors slaying of Marlene Miller, 15.
An April 21 parole hearing date has been set but may be changed if Hillery agrees to undergo a 90-day psychiatric exam required by the state Board of Prison Terms, spokesman Steve Blankenship said Friday. Hillery has refused to take that examination in the past.
Meanwhile, Kings County Sheriff Tom Clark has begun circulating a petition demanding that Hillery be denied parole. Kings County residents have petitioned the parole board with thousands of signatures each of the eight times Hillery came up for parole in the past.
Hillery, a black, won a new trial when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in January, 1986, that blacks were systematically excluded from the grand jury that indicted him.
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