The State - News from May 2, 1986

A preliminary hearing opened in Hanford to decide whether Booker T. Hillery, 54, should be tried a third time for the 1962 scissors slaying of Marlene Miller, 15. His original 1962 conviction was overturned on appeal, but he was tried again two years later and sentenced to death. That was commuted to life in prison when California’s death penalty law was abolished in the 1970s. Then, last January, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction because no blacks were on the grand jury that indicted him. Fresno Municipal Judge Steven Vartabedian presided at the preliminary hearing because all Kings County judges are disqualified because of previous involvement in the case.