Federal parole officers are recommending that former U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon, who was impeached and removed from office, be sent back to prison for carrying guns on a turkey hunt. Herb Lepchenske, one of two officers who conducted a parole revocation hearing Monday, said he will recommend Nixon serve 10 months of the remaining three years of his five-year sentence. Nixon, 61, was paroled in November 1989 on a conviction of lying to a federal grand jury. The seven-member Parole Commission in Atlanta will review the recommendation, and could give Nixon as little as a reprimand or as much as the full remaining three years of the sentence. At the hearing, Nixon said he was carrying guns in cases when he was arrested April 25 for hunting wild turkey over a baited field. Nixon, who is appealing his conviction on that state offense, testified he had changed his mind about hunting that day and never took the guns out. Chester Diaz, a state Department of Wildlife investigator, testified that Nixon asked him to pretend he wasn't carrying a rifle and a shotgun. Nixon knew the guns he had were illegal for a felon and asked if he could switch them for an old-fashioned muzzleloader, Diaz said. ``I told him `No, sir,''' said Diaz. ``I'm very, very remorseful for what I've done,'' Nixon said Monday. ``I haven't slept much since this happened.''
