Nebraska Board Of Pardons Rejects Earnest Jackson's Commutation Request

From Nebraska Examiner:

By Paul Hammel

September 19, 2022

LINCOLN — Without comment, the Nebraska Board of Pardons on Monday rejected the commutation request of Earnest Jackson, whose supporters filled a State Capitol hearing room.

Those supporters maintain that Jackson has spent 22 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit and that he is victim of a horrible injustice.

“I’ve never seen such disrespect,” one of Jackson’s supporters, Jason Witmer of Lincoln, said after the board didn’t take or make comments.

Even the son and girlfriend of the man killed in 1999 were supportive of Jackson’s release, Witmer noted.

Another man charged with Jackson confessed to the killing but was acquitted due to self-defense. During his trial, he testified that Jackson was not present during the fatal confrontation. The third person charged was acquitted because of the second man’s confession.

But Jackson’s trial preceded the other trials, and he was found guilty without the benefit of the testimony of the other co-defendants.

Jackson’s attorney said the Pardons Board’s rules allow it to reject commutation requests without comment.

Just prior to the board’s 3-0 vote, Gov. Pete Ricketts told the packed hearing room that the board can reject requests en masse and without comment based on the “gravity of the facts.”

It took the board just over three minutes to reject Jackson’s request along with requests by three other convicted felons.

Jackson’s attorney, Daniel Gutman of Omaha, said he was unsure what steps can be taken next earn Jackson’s release from he calls a “legally impossible verdict” — guilty of being an accomplice to a self-defense slaying.

Jackson, Gutman said, is first eligible for parole in 2029.

“But I don’t think people are going to be willing to sit back and wait until 2029,” the attorney said.

After court challenges have failed to free Jackson, his supporters turned to the Board of Pardons in hope they could take action to free him.

Witmer said that Jackson, in a phone call to supporters before the brief Pardons Board hearing, urged his supporters not to be destructive in response to the board’s decision and to remain hopeful.

“It’s not a gray area,” Witmer said of Jackson’s innocence. “But it is a gray area politically.”

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