By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
An Atmore man who served two years in prison for shooting and robbing a man during a poker game in 2015, will apparently spend five more years behind bars after he and two other local men were denied parole during recent hearings by the Alabama Board of Pardons & Paroles.
Eurecka Finklea, now 32, was convicted in 2019 of first-degree assault and sentenced to 15 years in prison. No details of the arrest or trial could be located. On the date of his hearing, he had served almost three years of the sentence and had accumulated 2,174 days of “good time.”
In 2016, Finklea was arrested and charged with first-degree robbery, first-degree assault and first-degree possession of marijuana. The robbery charge was eventually dropped, and Finklea served two years on the other two charges.
He is currently housed at North Alabama Community Work Center and won’t be released without parole or a pardon until July 20, 2023.
Also denied parole was 33-year-old John Kilgore Buckley, who was convicted here in 2017 on one count of breaking and entering a vehicle and one count of first-degree receiving stolen property. He was sentenced to serve 20 years.
On his hearing date, Buckley had served five years and two months
Currently housed at Fountain Correctional Facility, Buckley’s minimum release date is September 24, 2033.
Ronald Carter Johnson, 49, was also turned down for parole. Johnson was sentenced in 2009 to serve 20 years after his conviction for third-degree robbery. He had served four years, six months, and 29 days of that on his hearing date.
Currently housed at Elmore Correctional Facility, he won’t be released without a pardon or parole until October 14, 2034.
Johnson has an interesting incarceration history. He served six months on a 2008 conviction for second-degree forgery, which was a follow-up to a 1996 conviction for third-degree robbery and distribution of a controlled substance.
He was sentenced to 15 years for that conviction but served less than four years before he was credited with 11 years, 7 months and 3 days of “good time.” (He had earned more than 14 years of “good time” before more than three years were revoked.