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Madison, Wisconsin — The Wisconsin media often reports on new pardons granted by Gov. Tony Evers.
Facts are omitted in coverage misinforming readers about matters of grave import pertaining to our criminal justice system, the governor's power and Evers' political commitments.
Whether such misinformation is relayed purposefully, or committed out of a lack of diligence and intelligence on the part of Wisconsin journalists is beside the point. Misinformation only harms public affairs and private lives.
Tony Evers, like any Wisconsin governor, has the Constitutional power (executive clemency), to grant pardons, (grants of forgiveness restoring civil rights), sentence commutations (roughly, shortening a sentence), and reprieves, for any reason.
The gubernatorial clemency power is so broad that it is monarchical. Gov. Evers could wake up one morning and decide that only those who have completed their sentences from judges whom we know are corrupt may be granted royal relief — perfectly within the province of his gubernatorial authority.
In a piece for the State Bar of Wisconsin' journal, the Wisconsin Lawyer, past chair of the governor's Pardon Advisory Board, Donald Leo Bach, notes, "In Wisconsin, the power to pardon belongs exclusively to the governor, who can exercise it essentially in any manner the governor sees fit."
Evers' Pardon Advisory Board's website implies that criteria established for pardons and all clemency action have the force of law, but this is not just inaccurate and misleading, it is an out-and-out lie that has gained a firm footing.
"State law does not create a pardon advisory board or require its use. Instead, individual Governors decide whether to use a pardon advisory board and how to structure the board’s membership and work," notes the Wisconsin Legislative Council, IssueBrief (Oct 2019).
Advisory boards do not change Wisconsin governors' Constitutional power, but as in Evers' administration, advisory boards can serve as shields to protect politcal acts of cowardice and dishonesty on the part of the governor.
For some journalists, it is difficult to believe a politician engages in cowardice and dishonesty, so politicians' statements must be reported as fact, and not reported as self-serving statements.
Zero sentence
commutations
Evers' predecessor, Gov. Scott Walker, refused to use his power of executive clemency and granted zero sentence commutations and zero pardons, in accordance with his political commitments.
Gov. Tony Evers uses his power of executive clemency, but has granted zero sentence
commutations, in accordance with Evers' political commitments protecting a corrupt criminal justice system.
This aligns Evers with Scott Walker on sentence commutations, and differentiates Evers from Govs. Dreyfus, Earl and Thompson who together commuted 46 sentences between 1979-2001.
Pardons
Evers has granted 449 pardons as of March 24, 2022.
Evers set up his Governor's Pardon Advisory Board that advises him on whom to pardon.
All clemency decisions remain Evers' and his alone. To be clear, any reporting that also suggests that Evers is bound by his Advisory Board or other political adviser is erroneous.
Press coverage
One problem in press coverage is common omission of the fact Evers refuses to commute criminal sentences. When noted, Evers' refusal is followed by a paragraph re-stating that the Pardon Board's criteria disallows innocents still in prison to be considered for pardons by the Board.
Casual readers, including many in the Innocence community, conclude falsely that Evers has no choice but to follow the dictates of his own advisory board.
Evers' anti-commutation commitment seems ironic, especially in a state where law enforcement misconduct is rampant in Waupaca County, Shawano County and Manitowoc County, for example, and found throughout the state.
Why Evers adopts Scott Walker's model
Why did Evers set up his pardon regime in which applicants must wait years after serving a sentence, while simultaneously also refusing commutations?
Evers is offering political protection to the criminal justice system and law enforcement as he implicitly accepts as fact the system's findings, convictions and criminal sentencing. Evers effectively covers up for criminal justice system misconduct.
This, even as he attempts to accrue the political benefits of compassion that attend to an altogether weak and passive pardon regime.
Not once has Evers called into question dishonest cops, crooked prosecutors, or intellectually dishonest judges.
Evers could stand up against small-town injustice, police corruption and the likes of Ken Kratz, the disgraced prosecutor of Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery of Making a Murderer, (Netflix, Inc), infamy, as well as myriad other cases of injustice.
Tony Evers owes no more fealty to the Wisconsin Judiciary and the criminal justice system than he does to the findings and integrity of the state legislature.
Evers' political commitment defending the integrity of the criminal justice system drives his execution of zero commutations and his own selective pardon criteria, stated and unstated.
Consider Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery
The 2015 Making a Murderer pulls back the curtain on Wisconsin's criminal justice system so rigorously that no official can state, 'We didn't know.'
Both Dassey and Avery were wrongfully convicted of homicide at separate trials in 2007.
Ex-District Attorney Ken Kratz was forced to resign after Gov. Jim Doyle began removal proceedings in 2010 after a favors-for-sex, harassment scandal dating back years came to light.
Kratz, fatuously claimed innocence as the DOJ investigated him, citing his narcissistic personality disorder, sexual compulsion disorder and multiple drug addictions. The Wisconsin DOJ did not press criminal charges on a fellow law enforcement official nor review any of his past cases.
Not one elected politician demanded that all of Kratz' cases, including Dassey and Avery's, be re-examined because Kratz and east-central Wisconsin police are manifestly unreliable, citing Kratz' narcissistic personality disorder, sexual compulsion disorder and multiple drug addictions, for starters.
A member of Dassey's post-conviction defense team, former U.S. Solicitor General, Seth Waxman, said in Oct 2019 in Madison, "I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent."
Way forward
Gov. Evers needs to set up a Conviction Integrity Unit that acts as a liaison with Innocence Projects and other human rights groups to present cases they believe to have been dealt with unjustly and corruptly.
As noted in the Innocence Project - Conviction Integrity Units - Best Practices article, truth, liberty and justice need not be sacrificed because of corruption:
[2] c. Review is in the interests of justiceIt should be noted that in many jurisdictions prosecutors and courts have explicit statutory or common law authority to vacate convictions or reduce sentences in the interests of justice. It should be emphasized, however, that the orientation or mindset of an 'interests of justice' review is frequently an
important element in making a judgment about whether relief is warranted when reconstructing what occurred in old cases where there are, as in most cases, a need to resolve issues with less than perfect information.
d. The fact that a defendant pled guilty or is no longer incarcerated should not be a bar to examining cases
We as Wisconsin citizens must demand that no elected official works to keep in prison those whom they know to be innocent, and withhold our political support until innocent men and women breathe free air.
If Tony Evers and future governors won't correct the failings of our criminal justice system, we as citizens must do so.
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