Time is funny.
Funny, strange; not funny, ha-ha.
Take 1978 for example.
Depending on your age, 1978 may not seem all that long ago.
For many of us, 1978 certainly does not seem like a lifetime ago.
So many of us also have a problem with the suggestion that Jimmie Nelms should be released from prison.
It was in May of 1978 when Nelms and Walter Myrick were stopped by Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Conroy O’Brien. This was on the turnpike, near the Matfield Green service area.
They were able to get the better of the trooper. They forced him to kneel and then shot him in the head with his own weapon, killing him.
Now Nelms, 64, is up for parole. Myrick died in prison.
Next month the state parole board will consider the release of Nelms.
Why?
How would justice be served if he is released?
Has he learned his lesson?
Not to seem callous, but so what if he has?
If there is any decency in Nelms at all, presumably he was sorry for what happened the instant the bullet charge ignited.
While Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Conroy O’Brien was dying, presumably if there is anything decent in Nelms at all, he was already and irrevocably regretful.
Again, so what?
As much as Kansas taxpayers are sick of coughing up the bucks for prisons, they are willing to keep cop killers there.
If Nelms is able to make a purposeful life for himself in the penal system, then so much the better. If he finds a way to make a positive contribution to the society he so blithely turned his back on in 1978, good for him.
But none of that means that he deserves to be released into society once again.
Nelms and Myrick gave up their right to any social consideration when they forced Trooper O’Brien to kneel for his death.
— Chuck Smith