The State - News from April 18, 1986

A Hanford judge refused to allow bail for Booker T. Hillery Jr., awaiting possible retrial in the scissors slaying of a 15-year-old girl 24 years ago. The murder conviction of the 54-year-old Hillery, who is black, was overturned in January by the U.S. Supreme Court because no blacks were on the grand jury that indicted him. Hillery was twice sentenced to die for the slaying of Marlene Miller, whose body was found in an irrigation canal near her home. At the time, the state’s death penalty laws had been declared unconstitutional and his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Municipal Judge H. N. Papadakis agreed with the prosecution that Hillery, who was convicted of rape before the murder, is still a threat to women.