S-22-0411 State of Nebraska (Appellee) v. John C. Ezell (Appellant)

Appeal from the District Court for Douglas County, Judge Kimberly Miller Pankonin

Attorneys: Peder Bartling (Bartling Law Offices, P.C., L.L.O. for Appellant) and Jordan M. Osborne (Asst. Attorney General for Appellee). 

Criminal: Judicial Disqualification and Sentencing

Proceedings below: After the district court denied Appellant’s Motion to Disqualify, he entered a plea of no contest and was sentenced to twenty-six (26) to thirty (30) years in prison for Attempted Assault on an Officer in the First-Degree, forty (40) to forty-five (45) years in prison for Assault on an Officer, ten (10) to sixteen (16) years for Possession of a Deadly Weapon (Firearm) during Commission of a Felony, and twenty (20) to twenty-five (25) years in prison for Possession of a Deadly Weapon by a Prohibited Person.  On its own motion, the Supreme Court ordered this case to be transferred from the docket of the Court of Appeals to its docket.

Issues: Appellant makes the following assignments of error:  1) The District Court abused its discretion by denying Ezell’s Motion to Disqualify; 2) The District Court abused its discretion by ordering Ezell to serve an excessive sentence; 3) The District Court abused its discretion by ordering Ezell to serve consecutive sentences; and 4) The District Court’s sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.