ALBANY – Just weeks after enduring scathing criticism in an Appellate Division dissent, the state Board of Parole has voted unanimously to release a man it had denied on seven prior occasions.
A transcript of Samuel Hamilton’s parole interview on Aug. 19 suggests that a powerful letter written by the former Brooklyn prosecutor who put him away in 1983 was key to releasing Hamilton, who served 32 years of an 18-year-to-life sentence for taking part in a robbery that resulted in the death of an off-duty police officer. Hamilton was not the shooter and his two co-defendants were never prosecuted for the crime.
