TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A man convicted of killing a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper in 1978 has been granted parole after having past requests rejected, inspiring criticism and prompting the governor on Friday to call for reconsidering the decision.
Jimmie K. Nelms and another man, both from Tulsa, Oklahoma, were sentenced to serve two life sentences for the aggravated kidnapping and murder of following a traffic stop on the Kansas Turnpike about 55 miles (89 kilometers) northeast of Wichita. Nelms’ co-defendant, Walter Myrick, died in prison in 2009.
In Kansas, killing a law enforcement officer now can be punished by death, with the only other possible sentence in a capital case being life in prison without parole. But in 1978, Kansas had no death penalty, and Nelms was eligible for parole after 30 years in 2008. He sought parole in 2011 and 2021.
A date for Nelms’ release hasn’t been set. His release was approved by the Prisoner Review Board, comprised of three veteran state Department of Corrections employees appointed by its top administrator. Department spokesman David Thompson said the decision came several weeks after a March 6 hearing.
“The Kansas Prisoner Review Board believes that Mr. Nelms is able and willing to fulfill the obligations of a law-abiding citizen and is of the opinion that there is reasonable probability that Mr. Nelms can be released without detriment to the community or to himself,” Thompson said in a statement.
A decision becomes public when it’s criticized
The decision didn’t become public until the Kansas State Troopers Association condemned it as “disgraceful and disgusting” in a statement Thursday. Under Kansas law, it appears unlikely that critics can prevent Nelms’ release.
“Those who murder law enforcement officers should expect to receive the death penalty, not to be walking free on the streets of KS,” state Attorney General Kris Kobach said in on the social platform X.
The Kansas Legislature’s top leaders, Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins, called the parole decision “unconscionable” Friday.
They and Kobach are Republicans; the Department of Corrections is under Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat. But Kelly wants the board to consider reversing the decision “if legally possible,” spokesperson Grace Hoge said.
“The facts of this case demonstrate a brutal and intentional killing of a law enforcement officer,” Kelly Hoge said in an email. “There is no justification for this decision.”
A traffic stop turns deadly in 1978
According to court records and news reports, O’Brien stopped Nelms’ car for speeding about 2 miles south of a turnpike service area. Myrick was driving.
As O’Brien wrote a ticket in his patrol car, Nelms approached the driver’s side with a gun, according to authorities. Nelms forced O’Brien to get out of the car and told him to lie down in a ditch. Authorities said Nelms took O’Brien’s gun, struck the trooper with it, and, when O’Brien fell to the ground, shot him twice in the head.
O’Brien was 26 with a pregnant wife. Nelms was 31 and Myrick, 25. A 21-year-old man was also in the car with Nelms and Myrick, but he pleaded guilty to lesser charges and provided crucial testimony against Nelms.
The men fled in Nelms’ car, left the turnpike, and eventually drove north, where another patrol trooper spotted the car about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of where O’Brien died. Nelms’ car and the trooper’s collided in a pasture, and a gun battle ensued.
Nelms denied he was the shooter, but jurors convicted him and Myrick of murder, aggravated kidnapping and other charges during a joint trial.
Nelms served most of his sentence in maximum-security prisons but was transferred to a lower-security facility in 2023. Online Department of Corrections records show four disciplinary reports against him from 1996 to 2017, the last for disobeying orders. Thompson said Nelms works in the prison laundry.
Kansas changes how parole decisions are made
When Nelms sought parole in 2011, decisions were made by a three-member parole board appointed by the governor, subject to state Senate confirmation. That same year, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback issued an executive order abolishing the parole board in favor of a panel of Department of Corrections employees.
Brownback said the move would save the state $500,000 a year, and sentencing laws after 1993 limited parole. Critics worried that the department’s board would release inmates just to avoid prison overcrowding, and Kelly, then a state senator, called the change “a really bad idea.”
Masterson, the current Senate president, backed the change in 2011 but said Friday that it “has not functioned as intended” and that he would work for changes to see that the review board members “rightly answer to the people of Kansas.”
Democratic state Rep. Tom Sawyer, who reviewed Nelms’ case as a parole board member from 2009 through June 2011, said the board sometimes rejected parole when corrections officials recommended. Now, he said, the process is “all in-house.”
As for Nelms, Sawyer said, “I think it’s highly unlikely the parole board would have let him go, based on my experience.”
