A Brief Vacation from Supervision

There is a peculiar species of optimism in this country that believes that if you give a man “life in prison,” he will take the hint and stay put. Failing that, we offer him parole, on the theory that a gentleman, once convicted of murder, will surely behave himself if addressed politely and given a schedule.

Mr. James Tjeltveit appears to have tested this theory and found it lacking.

He was sentenced back in 1989 to life in prison, with that charming American footnote, “the possibility of parole,” which means we are not entirely certain what we meant by life, but we are willing to negotiate. By 2002, he was out again, which suggests the system had grown confident in his character, or at least tired of feeding him.

For a good long while, nothing much happened, always a suspicious sign. Then, this past December, Mr. Tjeltveit decided that supervision was an unnecessary luxury, like a chaperone at a saloon, and took his leave without troubling the authorities for their permission.

Now, in a less organized society, a fugitive might remain lost indefinitely, perhaps even write a memoir about it. But in Reno, where the desert is wide, and the patience of law enforcement is wider, a collection of determined officials, the Nevada State Police, the Parole and Probation Division, and a U.S. Marshals task force with a name long enough to discourage crime all by itself, set about correcting the misunderstanding.

On April 24, they found him and arrested him, thus restoring order and proving that while a man may flee supervision, he seldom outruns paperwork. Now, he sits in the Washoe County Jail, and there he remains.