The Nebraska Board of Pardons met Monday afternoon, allowing in-person testimony in 16 of 33 cases, and granting 12 pardons.Ìý
In the past, Pardons Board hearings have attracted enough people to fill the governor's hearing room, with strangers on occasion sitting and standing shoulder-to-shoulder and spilling into the halls.ÌýÂ
To accommodate the COVID-19 restrictions, Monday's hearing was moved to a legislative hearing room on the first floor of the Capitol, which has more seating, and enough space to allow the three members — Gov. Pete Ricketts, Attorney General Doug Peterson and Secretary of State Bob Evnen — to sit 6 feet apart.Ìý
Evnen said after the meeting it went well, with rows sectioned off for physical distancing and good air circulation in the hearing room. The hearing lasted about three hours.ÌýÂ
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Sixteen of the applications were heard with no testimony, and all of those were denied, Evnen said. Two applications for restoration of gun rights were approved.Ìý
Ten of the 14 remaining applicants that were allowed to testify were granted pardons and four denied. And one application, that of James Robert Wilfong, who was convicted in Sarpy County of first-degree sexual assault of a child, that had been tabled in February, was denied.Ìý
The applicants who testified were allowed into the hearing room five at a time every 30 minutes.Ìý
Until the February meeting, no Pardons Board hearings had been held to consider applications since July 2019. That had prompted Omaha Sen. John McCollister to introduce a bill (LB968) in January to better regulate meetings of the board. That bill still sits in the Legislature's Judiciary Committee.Ìý
McCollister's bill would, among other things, require the board to hold hearings on applications for pardons at least every 90 days; hear an application at the next regularly scheduled meeting after the filing; and prohibit combining of unrelated applications at the same hearing.Ìý
As of the bill's introduction, the board had held only seven hearings in more than 2½ years, and granted only 21 pardons, despite the board receiving close to 500 petitions.Ìý
At its February meeting, the board considered 60 applications. In 19 cases, the board heard no testimony.Ìý
The Pardons Board responded to McCollister's bill in January in a letter to the Judiciary Committee, saying the bill was unnecessary, and the board was committed to addressing the remainder of existing applications in additional meetings over the course of 2020. Board members said they had made significant improvements for the benefit of applicants.Ìý
Then the COVID-19 crisis happened, with its restrictions on the size of groups of people that can gather at any one time.Ìý
Still, the board found a way to hold hearings, but without live-streaming, video or audio of the proceedings for the public.Ìý