Nevada justices say no to parole hearing for man who killed his baby girl

CARSON CITY — A Las Vegas man who sold and then killed his baby daughter in 1990 and served 15 years for the crime has lost his legal bid to have his parole revocation reconsidered by the state Parole Board.

The Nevada Supreme Court has reversed a lower court decision granting a new parole revocation hearing for James Meegan.

Meegan is incarcerated at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City. His parole was revoked after his arrest in May 2013 stemming from an argument with his mother in her Anaheim, Calif., home.

Carson City District Judge James Todd Russell found that the Parole Board failed to meet minimal due process requirements when it did not provide a written statement of the evidence used to revoke Meegan’s parole in 2013.

The Parole Board appealed the ruling.

The Supreme Court panel said in the order from Wednesday that a written statement of the evidence used by the board for revoking Meegan’s parole was sufficient.

“While the Parole Board could have better articulated their findings at both the hearing and in the written statement, when reviewed as a whole the record reveals that the evidence supported a finding that Meegan had violated conditions of his parole due to the altercation with his mother and subsequent arrest and charges and that his parole was revoked due to concerns about public safety given his criminal history,” the court said. “While the board’s written statement in this case is not a model of due process, it is sufficient when considering the record as a whole.”

Meegan, 58, had been paroled in February 2011 after serving about 15 years of a sentence of 10 years to life in prison for the murder of his 10-month-old daughter, Francine, in 1990. He and his wife, Lillian, paroled in 2007, sold the baby to a California couple when she was 2 days old for $30,000 and a car title.

When the couple stopped making payments, the Meegans took the baby back when she was 9 months old. Within a month, the baby was dead, shaken to death by James Meegan because he was irritated by her crying in a playpen. Then he and his wife burned the body in the Arizona desert. Authorities did not tie them to the slaying until 1996.

Meegan will likely appear before the Parole Board in May for possible release in August.

Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801.