Tale of two Nebraska cities: Use of mayoral pardons varies widely in Lincoln and Omaha
By EMILY WOLF/Flatwater Free Press
Flatwater Free Press
Jasmine Harris was used to getting rejected by employers.
The problem wasn’t her qualifications — she had just received a bachelor’s degree in biology. And it wasn’t a lack of passion — she had a son and was eager to provide for her family.
The problem was a simple question on each job application: “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”
Harris was convicted of misdemeanor assault and battery under an Omaha city ordinance when she was in her early 20s. The conviction foreclosed opportunities that were previously open to her, she said. Later, even after going back to school, finding employment and establishing a career, it became a lingering source of dread.
“It’s the anxiety that it brings back up, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to fill this out again. Is it going to be denied?’”
That prompted her to apply for a mayoral pardon. When then-Mayor Jean Stothert pardoned Harris for her misdemeanor in 2017, she became one of hundreds of applicants over the years who have benefited from the little-known program.
While most people think of the state or president when it comes to clemency, Nebraska’s two largest cities offer their own form of redemption — directly from the Mayor’s Office.
Records that the Flatwater Free Press obtained through public records requests show that Omaha receives and approves significantly more mayoral pardons than Lincoln. From Jan. 1, 2020 to November 2025, Omaha pardoned more than 60 residents for misdemeanor convictions. Lincoln pardoned two.
The pardons, limited to violations of city laws, give applicants formal forgiveness and an opportunity to seal their conviction from public view. While a mayoral pardon doesn’t erase the conviction, it can be a life raft for residents whose criminal histories have limited options for things like housing and jobs.
“It’s really hard for them to move on to that next chapter in their life, because they’re a scarlet letter,” said University of Nebraska-Lincoln law professor Ryan Sullivan, who oversees the college’s Civil Clinic. “By getting that pardon … it tells them, ‘Hey, you made a mistake, but you are not that person anymore, and so we’re no longer going to limit you as a citizen.’”
The threshold to receive a pardon in Lincoln is very high, “meaning very few pardons have been approved,” Garret Swanson, the city’s chief communications officer, said in an email. Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird declined an interview request for this story.
In Omaha, both Stothert and current Mayor John Ewing acknowledged the importance of thoroughly reviewing a pardon request before making a decision, but noted the positive impact a pardon can have on someone’s life.
“If someone … made a mistake when they were a young person, and then they’re looking to be able to progress in their careers, the last thing we really need is something where they’ve done all the right things but they can’t get a job and be able to take care of their families,” Ewing said.
Living with regret
Many Omaha and Lincoln residents requesting a pardon cite the difficulty of finding a good job as a reason for seeking mayoral forgiveness. Others have run into barriers as they try to volunteer at their kids’ school, get a professional license or buy a firearm.
Tom Mumgaard wasn’t worried about any of that when he applied for a mayoral pardon in 2017. The longtime attorney and Papillion City Council member had worked for the City of Omaha for years, and his misdemeanor hadn’t negatively affected his employment or any other aspect of his life.
But decades after a conviction for misdemeanor gambling — earned by participating in a football pool at City Hall — Mumgaard decided to seek formal forgiveness. After he retired from the city, he submitted a pardon request to Stothert, which she granted.
“It was based upon my regret for having done something so stupid, and I wanted to, somehow, express my regret,” he said.
Pardons aren’t always the panacea applicants hope for. After receiving a pair of misdemeanor assault and battery convictions in the ’90s, Omaha resident Maurice Cannon lost his right to own firearms.
Cannon looks back on the events leading to those convictions with shame. In his 20s, he drank heavily — and when he drank, he said, his emotions overwhelmed him. The assault charges came after altercations with romantic partners, fueled by his drinking.
“Some people just have vices, and alcohol was mine,” he said. “That’s what led me to get into trouble. And I’ll be honest, the two victims, they didn’t deserve it.”
Cannon said he lived with that regret for years, but it wasn’t until a major life change that he began to explore the possibility of applying for a pardon. Health issues had forced the double amputation of his legs below the knee, and he worried about not being able to protect himself from intruders.
“Because I’m a double amputee, I can’t just get up and just run,” he said. “I got to get up, put my legs in and make sure that it clicks and everything for me to even get mobile.”
In 2024, Cannon, now in his 50s, applied for and received a mayoral pardon — then quickly discovered it hadn’t restored his gun rights. He was told those rights must be restored by the state board, not a mayor, and he’s working out next steps. Despite that, Cannon remains grateful to have received a pardon.
“I felt good when they did it, because I could put some of those things behind me,” he said. “But I know I still will always have that regret, because I did it.”
An uncommon opportunity
Municipal pardon programs are relatively uncommon across the U.S. While Nebraska and other states like Alabama, Missouri and Montana outline city pardon power in state law, many others don’t explicitly allow municipal pardons.
According to the Nebraska Judicial Branch, mayoral pardons are only available in Lincoln and Omaha. Records show the offenses people hope to get pardoned run the gamut. Some are minor, like letting a dog run loose or disturbing the peace. Others are serious, like assault or child neglect.
In Omaha, pardon requests are reviewed by the city prosecutor, who then makes a recommendation to the mayor’s pardon board. The city often receives more than a dozen requests in a year. Most receive a response within a month or two, according to city records, and the majority are approved. Denials often come because of ineligibility — mayors can’t pardon state offenses, and the city typically requires five years to pass without law enforcement contact.
For eligible offenses, the city prosecutor’s office pulls the accompanying police report for the case and runs a criminal background check.
“My philosophy was, I had a pretty generous view of things. I mean, these are municipal code violations. These aren’t like the crimes of the century,” said Omaha City Attorney Matt Kuhse, who previously served as city prosecutor. “But I would look at it, see how long ago it was, and then kind of evaluate the facts of the case: What’s happened since then? Have they picked up any new serious charges?”
Before 2018, only a select number of city violations were eligible for mayoral pardons in Omaha. That year, Stothert pushed to expand the list to cover just about all city ordinances. The City Council approved the change.
“If they are truly sincere about it, everybody deserves a second chance,” Stothert told the Flatwater Free Press. “And I think what I read in these (application) letters is a lot of remorse. In the letters, I hear a lot of ‘I was young, I was hanging around with the wrong group. I didn’t have any money, I was making bad decisions. And I’m truly sorry for it.’”
Stothert said she applied especially strict scrutiny to any pardon requests concerning domestic assault, animal neglect and child neglect. Ewing, a retired law enforcement officer, said he won’t pardon offenses involving sexual misconduct toward children and some types of violent crime.
In Lincoln, pardon requests are reviewed by the city attorney’s office, which makes recommendations to the mayor. Swanson said the city attorney weighs the applicant’s record, the nature of their offense and mitigating factors such as their age.
Over the last five years, the Lincoln mayor’s office has received 10 pardon request forms, according to records released by the city. Two were approved.
Of the 10 requests, half were submitted by law students in UNL’s Civil Clinic, overseen by Sullivan. The clinic started helping clients apply for mayoral pardons after a dramatic drop in the number of hearings held by the state Board of Pardons under then-Gov. Pete Ricketts.
“All of our clients, their (state) applications were pending for several years,” he said. “And so we went through the mayoral pardon route as a means to at least pardon their city convictions.”
That work started during former Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler’s tenure, Sullivan said. Initially, it was fairly straightforward, but that changed over time, he said.
Under Gaylor Baird, according to records, response times dragged into years. Four of the pardon requests filed from 2020 to November 2025 have not received a response. The mayor does intend to respond to the unanswered applications, Swanson said.
“We ultimately decided to decline to file any more, just because the process was too cumbersome,” Sullivan said. “And I don’t know if cumbersome is the right word, but there was no process, we would file and then just … no response.”
Swanson said after the city received several applications that contained inaccurate information, officials began to reach out to outside sources for information and verification.
Sullivan said they were never notified of any inaccuracies in applications they submitted, and he has no reason to believe there were any.
“Our process is very thorough,” he said. “If we had been notified, we would have taken steps to resolve any issues.”
At one point, one of the clinic’s clients applied for and received a pardon from the state board.
The Lincoln City Attorney’s Office then contested the effort to seal the case, arguing the state lacked the authority to pardon a municipal violation, Sullivan said. He argued that would mean all city violations outside of Omaha and Lincoln wouldn’t be pardonable. Ultimately, Sullivan said, the court ruled in favor of his client.
“It’s beneficial to both the individual and the community for these people to rehabilitate and be able to become full-fledged members of the community again and contribute,” Sullivan said. “It’d be mutually beneficial if there was a better process.”
Getting the word out
Harris, now vice president of development and external relations at the reentry nonprofit RISE, isn’t shy about sharing her experience. She has dedicated her career to helping others whose experiences with the criminal justice system have left them struggling to find a place in society. She has pushed for state legislation and run for mayor twice — challenging Stothert, the mayor who granted her pardon.
“I’ve already shared this story many times, people know it,” Harris said. “So I think it gives power to people who have gone through it to say, ’You know, maybe there is an opportunity for me. I see someone who’s gone through some struggles that are similar to mine, and I can come out of it and do these things.”
Kuhse, the Omaha city attorney, hopes the city can help spread the word about mayoral pardons as an option. City staff have given the public defender’s office application forms, posted the form on the mayor’s website and spread the word at clinics hosted by Legal Aid, he said.
“I just wish more people knew about it,” he said.
When asked about publicizing efforts in Lincoln, Swanson pointed to the mayor’s webpage, where the application is available.
Sullivan speculated that Lincoln’s lower number of pardon requests could be because of a relative lack of communication about the pardon program compared to Omaha. The law clinic just happened to stumble across the program, he said, and many residents don’t know it’s an option.
In both cities, he said, there’s likely a much larger population of eligible residents than the number of applications suggests.
“There’s a significant number of Lincoln and Omaha citizens who could benefit from this, if it was a better advertised option for people to really get a fresh start,” Sullivan said.
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This story was originally published by Flatwater Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
