A young man at a Maine school was a rising basketball star with interest from Division I programs and NBA aspirations, according to one of his lawyers.
Aaron Nichols, who was 20 years old then, was also charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl and having unlawful sexual contact with another teen in fall 2001 while he attended prep school at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield, which had one of the nation’s best basketball programs.
After entering a not guilty plea, the lawyer told reporters her 20-year-old client had no criminal record and “things happen between teenagers that may be blown out of proportion.”
“We certainly hope that the incident does not result in a devastating blow to his academic and professional career,” Janet Mills, who was then a state lawmaker, said in January 2002, according to a Morning Sentinel article.
As governor more than two decades later, Mills pardoned Nichols, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to a misdemeanor assault charge that drew a suspended one-year sentence with probation.
Mills, a Democrat, has used her constitutional power to issue dozens of pardons since taking office in 2019, but the June 2023 pardon for Nichols is a rarer case of a governor granting clemency to someone they once represented. While governors across the country have been accused of favoritism and unethical conduct for certain pardons, legal experts said nothing bars Mills from issuing such a pardon or makes it a clear conflict of interest.
The governor’s office does not typically comment on pardon requests. Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman said the governor has not had contact with Nichols since representing him two decades ago. He also noted Mills, who previously served as a district attorney and then attorney general, has represented thousands of clients in private practice during her career.
“As Governor, she is now the only person in Maine with the authority to grant a pardon,” Goodman said in an email. “It would be unfair to — and she cannot — wholesale remove herself from the consideration of clemency for a person she may have previously represented.”
The pardon process is generally kept under wraps in Maine. Requests first go before the Pardon Board, which makes a confidential recommendation to the governor. Hearings are public but virtually all of the records associated with pardons are confidential under an executive order laying out Mills’ pardon process near the outset of her tenure.
Mills’ office provided a list of the 74 pardons Mills had issued up until last August. The Pardon Board said it could not locate any recordings of hearings featuring public discussions on Nichols’ case. The Bangor Daily News reviewed court documents and past newspaper articles to learn details about Nichols’ case.
Mills’ predecessor, Republican Gov. Paul LePage, did not reveal the number and names of 112 people he pardoned in eight years — including the grandson of his mentor and a former Republican lawmaker — until the Associated Press obtained them under open records law.
Nichols was initially charged in late 2001 with a Class A felony that could carry up to 30 years in prison, after police said he allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl that fall. He also faced a felony unlawful sexual contact charge and a misdemeanor assault charge involving a different girl who was only described in a newspaper article as under age 18.
A case file shows the 15-year-old girl eventually chose to not pursue charges, and Nichols took a plea deal in August 2003 for misdemeanor assault. The two girls, who are now adults, did not respond to requests for comment.
Calls to a phone number associated with Nichols, who is now in his 40s and living in the Cleveland area, were not answered. Past news clippings said Nichols was an all-state basketball player in Ohio who came to Maine to improve his grades but left the school in December 2001.
A Morning Sentinel article from January 2002 on one of the court hearings said Nichols moved to an unidentified Connecticut school and had “several offers to attend major universities.” Recruiting sites noted the point guard had received looks from Division I programs, but online references to him tailed off after that.
Robert E. Davis, a Cleveland attorney who joined Mills in representing Nichols, said he and Mills thought it was best for Nichols, a Black man, to reach a plea agreement instead of going before “an all-white jury” in Maine. Davis said he spoke with Nichols “quite some time” ago after the case ended and that “he was doing very well.”
He did not know if Nichols went on to attend college or to advance his basketball career. Davis said he also was not not aware of where Nichols was now but heard he became an assistant basketball coach at the Cleveland high school he attended.
“I’m pleased that she did pardon him,” Davis said. “I always thought that he was a fine young man.”
Nichols applied for a pardon from Mills. Maine requires petitioners to publish a notice in a newspaper before their pardon hearing, but Maine Press Association and Morning Sentinel records did not reveal any such notice for Nichols. The governor’s office said the department attempts to contact any victims or others involved in the case prior to the Pardon Board hearing.
Jerry Reid, the governor’s legal counsel, informed Nichols of the pardon from Mills in a brief letter on June 30, 2023, which was also Nichols’ birthday.
Experts on pardons said governors have broad authority to issue them. Mark Osler, a law professor at St. Thomas University in Minnesota and former federal prosecutor, said questions over governors pardoning former clients do not often arise. But Osler noted the federal system gives prosecutors who handled a case “a voice” in reviewing clemency.
“If we allow prosecutors who pressed for a sentence to review with ‘considerable weight’ the sentence they sought in clemency, it’s hard to say it’s wrong for a former defense attorney to consider clemency of a former client,” Osler said via email.
Many of Mills’ other pardons went to people with theft, burglary and drug-related convictions. Around a dozen involved assault or weapons-related charges, with Nichols and four other people receiving pardons from Mills on the same day in June 2023. Nichols’ Class D charge was not the highest-level offense. For example, one recipient was convicted of kidnapping.
Reid, Mills’ chief lawyer, concluded his pardon letter to Nichols with a brief note.
“Congratulations,” Reid wrote, “and best wishes.”
