Conan Pope, sent to prison as a teenager for killing his abusive father in 2000, says he will serve the remaining 16 months of his sentence rather than accept one of the conditions of a parole offer that would see him released in two months.
Under a November decision granting him parole, Pope is scheduled to be released from prison March 21 after five-and-a-half years behind bars for shooting Frank Pope twice with a rifle during an argument over household chores.
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But the 21-year-old inmate and his attorney are protesting a condition of the state's parole offer: that Pope spend his first six months out of prison living in a drug and mental health treatment center.
"He's already been through the hell that he's been through by being in an adult prison and knowing that he killed his father. Let the kid be free now," said Pope's attorney, Kristina Wildeveld.
"He should have never done time in the first place. He should've been getting intense counseling, nourishment and guidance in a juvenile facility, not the punishment that the state prison represents. Now they want to give him counseling?"
Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners Chairman Dorla M. Salling said she cannot comment specifically on Pope's case, but said the seven-member board makes its decisions on parole conditions by examining each inmate's history.
"To imagine that anyone can be involved in a violent crime and incarcerated at a young age and not need some guidance coming out of prison is crazy," Salling said. "Our first priority is public safety, and we're trying to head off any trouble."
Wildeveld said Pope, who is incarcerated at Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs, informed her Monday that he intends to serve out his sentence until May 2007 rather than temporarily live in a treatment center, such as the one operated locally by the Salvation Army.
"He's extremely upset," Wildeveld said. "He has a safe home environment for him to go to, people who are willing to take him in, people who are like parents to him. Let him go home rather than to a Salvation Army program filled with serious drug addicts."
An order dated Nov. 29 shows Nevada Parole Commissioners voted 6-1 to parole Pope, with Commissioner Tami Bass dissenting.
During Pope's Nov. 9 parole hearing, Bass told Pope she was displeased that he had broken penal code by making a three-way phone call to his uncle.
Pope was 15 when he fatally shot his father in the family's Las Vegas home. Pope maintained that he had acted without malice or deliberation when he shot his father, who had cursed his children and smashed dishes after arriving home that day to find the kitchen dirty.
Pope claimed he shot his father to protect his then 16-year-old sister, Desiree, but she said she did not believe her father intended her harm.
At the time of the crime, prosecutors, who said the children weren't in imminent danger, labeled the killing cold-blooded murder.
In the weeks and months after the shooting, it became clear that Frank Pope had a history of abuse, and even murder.
Frank Pope served four years in prison in the 1960s for the slaying of an infant daughter. Also, there have been suspicions raised about whether Frank Pope killed another of his infant daughters, whose death was labeled a case of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
His own siblings described him as a dangerous psychopath who bragged about killing a German civilian while serving in the U.S. Army. And Clark County authorities in October 1997 investigated the report of a neighbor who feared Frank Pope might harm Conan and Desiree. Records show Conan told Clark County investigators that his father beat him with an extension cord, but no action was taken.
In his father's death, Conan Pope pleaded guilty in April 2001 to voluntary manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to four to 15 years in prison.
But he was granted parole on the voluntary manslaughter charge in 2002, leaving only the deadly weapon charge for which he won parole in November.
