In re Shigemura

In this case the Board of Parole Hearings (the board) denied an inmate’s application for a parole date and she challenged the denial by way of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which the trial court granted. The warden of the prison where the inmate is incarcerated filed a timely notice of appeal. 1 We reverse.

*444 The board denied the inmate a parole date principally on the grounds the inmate had not adequately demonstrated insight into the reasons she participated in the brutal strangulation and bludgeoning of the victim, who had been a friend of both the inmate and the other two participants in the victim’s murder. We believe the record, considered in the light of the deference courts must accord decisions of the board, fully supports the board’s decision.

The murder occurred after the inmate’s former boyfriend lured the victim into a car the inmate was driving and strangled the victim while the inmate kept driving. The murder took place because the inmate’s former boyfriend believed that murdering the victim was the only means of protecting himself, his current girlfriend and the inmate from a methamphetamine dealer who had frightened them and who they also…