Wisconsin Gov. Evers' Political Grift on Commutations Aped by Media

Commentary

"I hate injustice. I guess that's about the only thing I really do hate."
Ben Shahn, anti-fascist artist, (1898–1969). 

Madison, Wisconsin — It's Easter 2026 and Gov. Tony Evers (D-Wisconsin) days earlier emitted typically deceitful posturing on executive clemency under the Wisconsin Constitution—pardons, (grants of forgiveness restoring civil rights); sentence commutations (roughly, shortening a sentence), and reprieves.

Last week, Evers penned two new April 2026 executive orders pertaining to Wisconsin commutations: Gov. Evers Executive Order #287: Relating to the Creation of the Governor's Commutation Advisory Board; April 3, 2026;   Gov. Evers Executive Order #288: Relating to the Creation of a Juvenile Life Sentence Commutation Process — April 3, 2026, some nine months after Evers' second term expires.

Evers' executive orders are misleading, as what passes for Wisconsin press misreports the legal power of executive orders and advisory boards (no legal power) vis a vis executive clemency in Wisconsin. 

This matters because wrongfully convicted in Wisconsin's corrupt criminal justice system—from Steven Avery, Penny Brummer to Brendan Dassey—are studiously avoided and deflected away by Tony Evers who infamously (at least among some circles) denied Dassey's 2019 pardon petition, falsely claiming an advisory board prohibited Evers from granting a pardon or commutation.

Commutations are only now available and restored after 25 years of not being available, falsely reports Evers' personal scribe, Frank Zefall in the Wisconsin Examiner, See, "Gov. Evers announces commutations will be available in Wisconsin."

My god, what is wrong with Zefall? Do he not research his topic?

Commutations have never in Wisconsin history been unavailable, there is no need to restore commutations as executive clemency which includes commutations remains an unchanged and exclusive Constitutional power of the Wisconsin governor. 

See, for example, Donald Leo Bach's work in the Wisconsin Lawyer, or better yet, read Article V, Section 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Facts and Analysis on Commutation

Evers' predecessor, Gov. Scott Walker, refused to use his power of executive clemency and granted zero criminal sentence commutations, zero pardons and reprieves, in accordance with Walker's political commitments and wishes.

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, and blocking out even comment on wrongful convictions, much less commutations and pardons. 

Wisconsin Democrats do love their corrupt criminal justice system.

Advisory boards do not change Wisconsin governors' Constitutional power, but as in Evers' administration, advisory boards can serve as shields to protect political acts of cowardice and dishonesty on the part of the governor.

Evers has pardoned only those who have served full sentences-plus five years.

On commutations, Evers is aligned with Scott Walker, as both Walker and Evers granted zero commutations. 

Zero commutations differentiates Evers and Walker from Govs. Dreyfus, Earl and Thompson who together commuted 46 sentences between 1979-2001. 

I will never fathom the mania behind Wisconsin Democrats like Evers to posture and mislead.

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 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 and commutation regime that again has no force in law.

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 and manifestly unreliable prosecutor of wrongfully convicted Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery, of Making a Murderer, (Netflix, Inc), 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. 

Again, commutation and pardon advisory boards and guidelines have no more force in law than if Evers consulted Tarot cards or astrology. It's just cover. 

And it takes an obvious misstatement of fact about the governors' unchallenged executive clemency power to cover up Evers' cowardice.

Evers is offering political protection to the criminal justice system as he implicitly accepts as fact the system's findings, convictions and criminal sentencing choosing finality over truth. 

As a member of Brendan 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."

Tony Evers does not care, and he lies and misleads to hide this fact.

Making a Murderer Part 2 Is a Brilliant Light Cast upon Depraved People — Wisconsin Cops and Prosecutors

Wisconsinites should watch Making a Murderer, Part 2,
and bear witness to the crucifixion of human beings by
Wisconsin at its most-depraved.
If it were in my power, I would make viewing both series
of Making a Murderer obligatory for Wisconsin
public school students and staff.

Revenge and malicious prosecutions — State terror in the Badger state

 ---
"I hate injustice. I guess that's about the only thing I really do hate."
Ben Shahn, anti-fascist artist (1898–1969)

Madison, Wisconsin — We finished Making a Murderer, Part 2 (Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos) with critical minds and open hearts.

Lifelong Wisconsinites, both my life partner and I felt we were bearing witness. Such is the power of this pioneering documentary.

Making a Murderer, Part 2 shows attorney Kathleen Zellner's dismantling another wrongful conviction of Steven Avery, and a second, equally dedicated defense team led by attorney Laura Nirider, working for the other wrongfully convicted victim, Brendan Dassey, (induced into a wild, false confession of sorts), in this account of the Wisconsin criminal justice system.

Step-by-step, piece-of-evidence by piece-of-evidence, Zellner offers not just a compelling case of Avery's innocence, but an equally compelling case of criminal guilt by Wisconsin cops and prosecutors.

Wisconsin is not equipped, not wired, to expose, challenge and change its hellacious criminal justice system. We need help.

This documentary series brings viewers a spectacle of brutality and state violence, what we did to Steven Avery and Brenden Dassey and their families, victims of a framing scheme perpetrated by the Manitowoc and Calumet County (Wisconsin) Sheriff's offices and multi-jurisdictional prosecutions in kangaroo federal and state courts.

Bearing witness in viewing a series is assuming a duty to speak out and state, this is what happened and this is not done in our name.

It means asking the Wisconsin people to consider that having prosecuted and convicted innocent people for horrific crimes, it follows that the guilty are free and likely not leading lives in the tradition of Bertrand Russell and 20th century radical pacifists.

Avery was framed for murder because he was about to expose the ugly realities of Wisconsin law enforcement in his $36 million civil lawsuit for his first wrongful conviction.

I don't know how these County cops live with themselves. Then again I don't think I really understand killers and those who would lie with the objective to destroy lives.

Making a Murderer Part 2 is a brilliant chronicle, showing viewers the moral equivalent of murder committed twice against Avery, and once against Dassey in east-central Wisconsin.

The murderers are Ken Kratz (disgraced former district attorney and sex offender); Mark Wiegert, (sergeant at the Calumet County Sheriff's Office); Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator); Gene Kusche, the Manitowoc County chief deputy sheriff under Sheriff Tom Kocourek; Manitowoc County Sheriff's Lt. James Lenk; and Sgt. Andrew Colborn, all of whom acted in their official capacities to imprison the innocent, and inflict the psychological and physical deterioration of Mrs. and Mr. Avery, and Barb, Brenden Dassey's mother. Dozens more.

What horrific human garbage. 

This visual presentation of torture inflicted on the Avery and Dassey families is critical to understanding what a few dozen yahoos in Wisconsin are capable of — a state crucifixion of ordinary people in Wisconsin, a pleasant place to live, a great place to grow up, but a region full of by-standers, ignoramuses, and cowards.
 ---
I know. I grew up in east-central Wisconsin in Fond du Lac, about 45 miles southwest of Manitowoc.

I loved what for me was a privileged first 19 years amid nigger jokes, Jew jokes, and a population steeped in committed ignorance. But none of it touched me, though on more than one occasion I felt like I was bearing witness to a region steeped in stupidity and racism, and every public official bar none who failed to speak out.

The same dehumanization and madness behind racism are at play in Manitowoc and Calumet counties.
  ---
There is plenty of footage in Making a Murderer Part 2 on Attorney General Brad Schimel (R), a typical Wisconsin Republican sadist who has kept the torture going.

Schimel was just defeated in his bid for reelection last November by a young Democratic candidate, Josh Kaul, another native of east-central Wisconsin and my hometown—Fond du Lac.

In the campaign for attorney general, crucifying the innocent was never an issue. It remains unclear how Kaul and the new governor, Tony Evers, also from east-central Wisconsin, will perform in their offices to put a stop to these obvious-to-any-rational-observer wrongful convictions.

With respect to Tony Evers, I don't think the man is equipped in intellect, character or inclination to correct an injustice through commutation or pardoning. Evers is just another by-stander, a bureaucratic non-entity.

When it comes to criminal justice and human lives, Wisconsin's political and legal cultures range from numb to malicious. Evers is numb.
---
That addresses a question implicit in Making a Murderer Part 2: How did the Avery and Dassey crucifixions happen?

How do depraved criminals like Ken Kratz and the Calumet and Manitowoc County Sheriff's office get away with framing innocent people?

We in Wisconsin let them.

The injustice inflicted upon Avery and Dassey evokes Sacco and Vanzetti.

The innocent Sacco and Vanzetti were targeted, tortured and killed.

The killers murdered them because they could and because they would.

There is overwhelming evidence of corruption in Wisconsin / Manitowoc County. You yourself admit law enforcement let a violent rapist go free in 1985 ... and that was without being motivated by Avery's lawsuit. History repeating itself? #MakingAMurderer #MakingAMurdererPart2

— Making A Murderer - NeedlessThings (@Presumed_Guilty) November 21, 2018

This is the role of the police in American society: To carry out injustice.

What our role as citizens becomes is precisely what we make of it.

Viewing Making a Murderer, Part Two, it's clear that we as citizens gave cops and assorted killers a free pass to seek revenge against Avery and Dassey.

Avery was about to publicly display Manitowoc County as stupid and malicious, and Dassey was available.

It's the way it is here for killer cops, for Penny Brummer, and so many innocents to list.

Woke up at 5am with my daughter this morning and rewatched the last 2 episodes of @MakingAMurderer Thankful for women like @ZellnerLaw who demand justice and fight corruption. #FreeStevenAvery

— Hilarie Burton (@HilarieBurton) November 23, 2018

Watching Making a Murderer, Part 2 is to experience an ongoing hope that at some point, surely some decent force, some authority with a regard for liberty and humanity, is going to put a stop to this madness in Manitowoc.

After-all, the state and governmental authority are mere instruments to assure the liberty and happiness of the individual.

There is the writ of habeas corpus petition, the great writ, the last-chance for the innocent — weakened in 1996 in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). [Thank you, Bill and Hillary Clinton for that.]

There's two broad methods judges can employ in considering post-conviction, habeas petitions in federal litigation.

Judges can consider the wisdom of Richard Posner (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, (1981-2017)), on judicial opinion writing in federal appellate court: "Be sure to read every case, statute, regulation article, treatise, etc., [case documents]," (p. 257, Reflections on Judging (Harvard University Press. 2013)).

Alternatively, an appellate judge such as David F. Hamilton can effectively stick his head in a hole, dismissing facts and understanding of police and judicial action against a prisoner of the state.

Hamilton and appellate judges Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit chose the head-in-hole approach to habeas jurisprudence.

"[O]ur job as a federal court reviewing a state conviction under § 2254(d) [application for a writ of habeas corpus] is not to consult scholarly literature in search of new best practices," intoned Hamilton in his astonishingly dismissive opinion that overturned a federal district court and a three-judge ruling granting habeas relief to Brendan Dassey, (p.111, Dassey v. Dittman).

Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, was clearly appalled at this Dred Scott of Habeas litigation.

Reading Hamilton's opinion on intentional ignorance of scholarly literature, Zellner replies, icy and incensed: "Really? Why not? Why would you not be availing yourself of what experts have determined about false confessions?" (Episode 8; 24 minutes, 45 seconds).

So WI Department of "Justice" doesn't care about justice in Brendan's case. They want him to rot in prison because they can't admit they went after innocent 16 yr old boy to convict his uncle.#makingamurderer#cjreform https://t.co/hLxeFy3MfC

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) May 10, 2018

Steven Avery is demonstrably innocent. Avery's case will become a wrecking crew of injustice. We're that close.

When Avery wins his legal fight, Brendan Dassey will be released. He cannot be an accomplice to a crime that did not occur.

But have we come to public crucifixions in Wisconsin? Has Wisconsin really come to that?

"It 'came to that' the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."

The quote is from Spencer Tracy as a composite character of Robert H. Jackson and other jurists in Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), a film worthy of the topic.

Wisconsin does not have the death penalty, but the bodies are piling up.