Jim Masteller, '99: Appointed by Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts to Replace Longtime Douglas County District Judge Mark Ashford
Governor taps 17-year prosecutor to fill Mark Ashford's judgeship in Douglas County
Jim Masteller has been a prosecutor for the 17 years he’s been an attorney.
But that doesn’t make him one-dimensional, his colleagues say.
Masteller’s experience in the Douglas County Attorney’s Office has run the gamut from prosecuting two men in the brutal murders of a Brazilian family to meticulously and methodically dismantling an embezzler who raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from an Omaha ice rink.
Now, Masteller, a native of Sioux City, Iowa, will expand his professional range — as Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts appointed him this week to replace longtime Douglas County District Judge Mark Ashford, who died in August in his chambers.
“Jim has all the tools you would want in a judge,” Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said. “He’s as solid as they come — someone you can trust and count on, a hard worker with a great temperament. I could give Jim anything, and I knew he would be able to handle the most complex cases and do a great job.”
Among the higher-profile cases of his 58 jury trials, including more than 20 murder cases, Masteller helped prosecute Shanna Golyar in the disappearance and presumed death of Cari Farver — securing a first-degree murder conviction, despite the fact that authorities never found Farver’s body. He also handled myriad gang cases, including the prosecution of a man who used an AR-15 to mow down two gang rivals in northeast Omaha and the prosecution of a 12-year-old and his brother who rode their bikes to Miller Park and killed a marijuana dealer.
Masteller graduated from Bishop Heelan Catholic High School in Sioux City in 1992, Creighton University in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. He served as a law clerk for the late U.S. District Judge Thomas Shanahan before joining the Douglas County Attorney’s Office.
Read more at Omaha World-Herald