Not content with castigating the Kansas Prisoner Review Board for its decision to pardon the killer of a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper 48 years ago, the Kansas State Troopers Association has organized a petition seeking to change state law if similar incidents arise later.
KSTA is urging residents to sign the online petition and demand “definitive action” so people convicted of murdering law enforcement officers have no chance of parole. It also says the option of parole in these cases “undermines the seriousness of a life sentence and diminishes the sacrifices made by officers and their families,” adding recent statistics from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund indicate one officer is killed in the line of duty every 58 hours in the United States.
Currently, Kansas has the death penalty, so killing a law enforcement officer can be punishable by execution or life in prison without parole. That was not the case when Jimmie Nelms shot Trooper Conroy O’Brien to death in 1978 because Kansas had no death penalty at that time, so Nelms — after being convicted on murder and aggravated kidnapping counts, earning two life sentences in the process — was eligible for parole in 2008. He tried unsuccessfully in 2011 and again in 2021.
In May 1978, O’Brien pulled over Nelms and two others allegedly involved in a string of armed robberies as part of a traffic stop on the Kansas Turnpike near the Matfield Green service exit. Nelms and two others approached O’Brien’s vehicle and overpowered him. Highway Patrol Superintendent Col. Erik Smith says Nelms pistol-whipped O’Brien and then shot O’Brien twice in the back of the head with O’Brien’s own service revolver.
Besides sharp criticism from Smith and KSTA, Attorney General Kris Kobach condemned the decision by the Prisoner Review Board. Governor Laura Kelly has also asked the board to reconsider its decision.
