Erin Brown
Days after returning from Iraq in 2004, Eric Pizer intervened in an altercation, breaking a man’s nose. It derailed his dream of becoming a police officer.
For Eric Pizer, and many other people in Wisconsin, the waiting is the hardest part.
“It feels like it’s been a long time coming,” says Pizer, a military veteran who has spent years seeking a gubernatorial pardon so he can pursue his dream of becoming a cop. “I definitely feel like I paid my dues, been punished long enough. I’m ready for my second chance from life, to get a little of that freedom back that I fought for.”
Pizer, a single father of two who lives in Edgerton and works at the FedEx Ground center near the Dane County airport, is among hundreds of Wisconsin residents who have long been denied the opportunity to obtain a pardon. That’s because former Gov. Scott Walker disbanded the state’s Pardon Advisory Board and refused to even consider any pardons or commutations during his eight years in office.
Tony Evers, who ousted Walker last fall, declared in February that his administration would resume granting pardons, telling Madison television station WKOW, “We will get that board up and running and utilize the constitutional authority that the governor has.” He added, “People will be able to apply and the board will make recommendations.”
Four months later, it looks like that is about to occur. Evers’ office will on June 13, announce the formation of a new Pardon Advisory Board and begin the process of accepting applications, according to spokesperson Melissa Baldauff.
The board will be chaired by Evers’ chief legal counsel, Ryan Nilsestuen, and consist of seven other members: Jerry Hancock, director of the Prison Ministry Project; Nate Holton, director of diversity and inclusion for the Milwaukee County Transit System; Judge Jeffrey Kremers, a former Milwaukee County circuit court judge and an appointee of Attorney General Josh Kaul; Cindy O’Donnell, former deputy secretary of the Department of Corrections under three Wisconsin governors; Nadya Pérez-Reyes, legislative advisor for the Department of Children and Families; Myrna Warrington, director of vocational rehabilitation on the Menominee Indian Reservation; and Noble Wray, Madison’s former chief of police.
Baldauff says the new board, created by executive order, will “start laying out processes,” including creating a new application form. Those who have sent in older forms will need to reapply.
Already, the stack of letters inquiring about pardons fills an 11-inch-tall U.S. Postal Service mail bin in the governor’s office. Baldauff says the office has of this week received 1,682 contacts, including letters, emails, and phone calls.
Many of the letters are handwritten; most are from prisoners. Some profess their innocence or seek to relitigate their convictions or sentences. Most are unlikely to succeed, given the number and nature of pardons in the past.
“Situation was the result of drug use and immaturity on my part,” writes one inmate, who admits shooting three people to death. Another correspondent, convicted of three counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child, says the prosecutor “lied on the stand” and “let the victim lie on the stand.” Good luck with that argument.
Yet a significant share of appeals — far more than the roughly 20 files the office has flagged for follow-up — seem worthy of further review.
One, from the Reverend Mwangi Vasser of Rock Springs, Georgia, seeks a pardon for a 1998 Wisconsin felony conviction for, he says, possessing $125 worth of drugs. “Twenty years have passed and I have not had any kind of negative encounters with law enforcement,” he writes. Another is from an attorney seeking a posthumous pardon for Laurie Bembenek, a one-time Milwaukee police officer who was convicted — falsely, many believe — of murdering her then-husband’s ex-wife in 1982. She died in 2010 while a pardon request was pending before Gov. Jim Doyle.
Doyle, a Democrat, issued nearly 300 pardons during his eight years in office, according to the Associated Press. Republican Govs. Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum granted a combined 262. In all, Walker’s five immediate predecessors pardoned more than 800 people.
Pizer, 38, presents an especially stark situation for which the power to pardon seems to have been designed. In September 2004, two days after returning from Iraq, where he served as a corporal in the Marines, Pizer intervened in an altercation between his friend and another man. He punched the man once, breaking his nose.
The injury turned out to be serious and Pizer, a New Glarus native and Madison resident who had no prior juvenile or adult criminal record, was charged with substantial battery, a felony. He pleaded no contest and served two years on probation. He only later learned that the conviction barred him from becoming a police officer.
“I don’t want to say I was wrongfully accused of what I did,” Pizer says. “I made a mistake and I paid a price for it.” But, he adds, “I don’t feel that what I did was worth a life sentence, as far as punishment goes.”
Pizer’s efforts to obtain a pardon have been spearheaded by his Madison attorney, David Relles, who mounted a public campaign for mercy against Walker’s no-pardon rule, along with fellow attorney Jack Zweig. In just a short period in late 2013, Walker’s office received at least 19 contacts from state residents urging that Pizer be given, as one person put it, “a second chance to continue contributing to Wisconsin and America.” Walker ignored these appeals.
Erin Brown
Attorneys David Relles, center, and Jack Zweig, right, campaigned against Gov. Scott Walker’s no-pardon stance.
Walker claimed that granting pardons to offenders, as the state constitution allows, would amount to “undermining the actions of a jury and of a court.” Others disputed this contention.
“I can’t think of another governor who has so obviously said, ‘I’m not going to do my job,’” Margaret Colgate Love, the U.S. Justice Department’s lead pardon attorney under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, told me in 2014. Another national expert called the power to pardon “part of our system of checks and balances.”
When I interviewed Walker in late 2014, he suggested that granting pardons not only served to “discount” the workings of the justice system but also gave an unfair advantage to those who receive them. “What about all those other individuals who may not have an advocate but who have equally turned their lives around?” he asked.
Quite possibly, Walker’s calculus was purely political: The upside of being seen as merciful did not outweigh the risk that a pardoned individual might commit an offense and make Walker look bad.
During its controversial lame-duck session in December, the Legislature passed a new rule requiring the governor to report any pardons and to track whether any pardoned individuals go on to commit other crimes. “The provision seems designed to increase the political risks of pardons — and thus preserve Walker’s clemency abstinence,” reported the Pacific Standard.
Pardons, like other forms of clemency, including sentence reduction, do not erase or seal convictions. But they do restore the right of felons to possess weapons and hold office.
A bill now before the Legislature would greatly expand the availability of expungement, which actually goes further than pardons in wiping out past convictions and causing case files to be shut off from public access. (Full disclosure: As president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, I have opposed shielding these records.) Pizer would not qualify for expungement because his offense involved violence.
Pardons by governors are similar to those that presidents grant for federal offenses. President Trump has used this power to pardon racist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio for violating court orders, political operative Lewis “Scooter” Libby for blowing the cover of a CIA agent, and right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza for making illegal campaign contributions. Currently, Trump is weighing a pardon for former Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, who is being court-martialed for indiscriminately shooting and killing civilians in Iraq and stabbing to death a prisoner of war who may have been as young as 15.
Relles is not just seeking a pardon for his client. He wants to make sure the process is open and fair to everyone, whether or not they have a lawyer or political connections. He sent a document to this effect to Evers and others in his office but did not hear back.
Pizer says that for him, a pardon would “mean everything.” It would “finally allow me to do what I want to do with my life.” He thinks his life experience prepares him well for the job of being a cop: “I’ve been through a lot.”
Relles adds that the true benefit of pardons is not just increased employment opportunities but a respite from the burden that a criminal conviction can bring. “Being a convicted felon is a very personal, in-the-soul experience,” he says. “Giving people pardons can have a profound impact on the person, on their entire family, and the community.”
Notably, the man whom Pizer punched, Steven Frazier, has accepted Pizer’s apology. As recounted by The New York Times, the two men met at a mediated session in Boscobel, the birthplace of the Gideon Bible, in early 2014.
“I don’t think I said sorry more times in my entire life,” Pizer is quoted as saying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It was never my intention to get into a fight that night. I never meant to.” They talked some more and Pizer asked Frazier for forgiveness. “I forgive you,” Frazier said, and the two men shook hands.
Soon it will be Tony’s turn.
[Editor's note: The subhed of this story was changed to reflect the timing of the formation of the advisory board. It was also corrected to reflect that in Wisconsin the rights of felons to vote and serve on juries are automatically restored upon completion of a sentence.]
