Advocates Ask Evers To Issue First Commutations In a Quarter Century

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In Wisconsin, the last time there was a commutation — a reduction of a criminal sentence by the governor’s authority to grant clemency — it was during Republican Tommy Thompson’s administration (1987-2001). Thompson issued seven commutations in addition to 202 pardons.

Subsequently, with the exception of  former  Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who served from 2011 to 2019, governors have offered hundreds of pardons.

Gov. Tony Evers set a record for the number of pardons he’s offered during his seven years in office at 1,640.

However, like his fellow Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, who issued 326 pardons, Evers has not issued any commutations.

Members of WISDOM, a non-profit faith-based organization that works to end mass incarceration, say Evers told them in 2023  that he would begin issuing commutations.

However, Evers has never made an official statement on his position concerning commutations. He did not respond to a request for a comment on the matter from the Wisconsin Examiner.

Evers ran for office promising to reduce Wisconsin’s prison population. After a dip during the COVID-19 pandemic, the prison population is experiencing an upswing. There were 23,495 people in prison in Wisconsin as of Sept. 26, compared with 23,292 when Evers took office on Jan. 7, 2019. Nearly every prison in the state reports a population exceeding the facility’s official capacity.

Criminal justice advocacy groups like WISDOM and Ex-incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) of Wisconsin have noted that one way Evers could address the prison population is by offering commutations, especially for those who have served long sentences and have proven to be low risks to return to society.

In 2023, Beverly Walker of WISDOM led a team that included legal scholars to study how commutations were conducted in neighboring states and prepared a proposal for how Wisconsin could begin implementing commutations again.

“We wanted to offer [Evers’] legal team something that could be advanced and not be a hindrance that they could move forward with and be implemented,” said Walker.

Walker said the proposal had two components:

1.     The commutation would make the resident eligible for parole, with a parole board considering the application and making a recommendation.
2.     The governor could issue a direct commutation resulting in a shortened sentence, including possible release from prison.

“We said if you are uncomfortable releasing people from prison, we ask that you just make them eligible for parole,” said Walker.  “Allow them to go before the parole board, and the parole board make the decision on their eligibility based on what they see.”

“A lot of these people will never see the light of day without a commutation,” she said. “But a lot of these people have done college, gotten degrees, have been doing amazing work inside prison, and some have even been allowed to work outside of the fence and are just doing great, exhibiting great behaviour. They have transformative stories, and they have proved that they have put in the work.”

Walker’s team is asking Evers to consider commuting the sentences of people serving long-term sentences in prison whom the group identified for their good behavior and good prospects for release. In anticipation of release, Walker’s team also researched the availability of work opportunities, housing and even resources such as food pantries.

Commutation candidates

In response to a request from the  Examiner for  information on the candidates, Walker said her team decided not to release their names for fear of damaging their chances. WISDOM’s Sherry Reames, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison English professor and volunteer on the commutations committee, offered a general description of all the present candidates for commutation.

According to Reames, the candidates were all convicted of a serious crime, mostly first-degree intentional homicide (either alone as party to a crime) in the 1990s when they were young men, between 20 and 22.

All the candidates were sentenced to decades in prison and will not be eligible for parole until the 2040s.

“Historically a life sentence in Wisconsin had allowed for the possibility of parole after about 15 years, a length of time which the Sentencing Project and other authorities have determined is about long enough to punish most crimes, especially by young offenders,” said Reames, “but it was the ‘tough on crime’ 1990s when our commutation candidates were convicted.”

Walker also said the candidates have used their years in prison to change their lives.

“Some of them initially had a hard time adjusting to the prison rules, but they have matured into model citizens, who lead and train other workers and earn positive reviews from staff,” said Reames. “Some have been continuously employed by Badger State Industries (now BSE) for a decade or more at a time, while others have rotated through the whole gamut of prison jobs (kitchen, laundry, custodial, library, clerk, maintenance, tier tender, etc., etc.). What they all have in common, however, are their obvious work ethic and self-discipline.”

Reames also said some candidates have obtained their high school degrees in prison and then certification as electricians, barbers, carpenters, bakers or building-service managers.

Some have also earned college credits from four-year universities, she said.

“Several have completed Trinity International University’s whole four-year degree program in Biblical studies with a minor in psychology, laying the foundation for careers as pastors and counselors,” said Reames, “and others have completed the necessary training to assist younger prisoners as certified peer mentors and tutors.”

Some also participated in Restorative Justice and Victim Impact programs.

Post announcement

When Evers announced this summer that he wasn’t going to run for another term, advocates expressed renewed interest in pressing him for commutations before he leaves office.

Walker told the Wisconsin Examiner that her group is engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the governor’s legal staff. In September, while acknowledging gratitude for all the pardons Evers has issued, Walker also expressed frustration over the lack of action on commutations.

“I am challenging him (Evers) to uphold these things that he has said,” said Walker. “He made these campaign promises that he was going to reduce the prison population, that he was going to do all these things as it pertains to people incarcerated and that included commutations, and it has been over two years and I don’t want to be disappointed, and at what point will I be able to be proud of this man that I elected?”

At the end of October, however, Walker was more upbeat about the possibility of a commutation: “It does look promising,” she said.

Marianne Oleson, operations director for EXPO, said her advocacy group also sees a window of opportunity in Evers’ last year in office and has also discussed commutations with the governor’s office and with legislators and their aides.

“Whenever we have the opportunity, we put out eblast constantly; we put out social media, “ said Oleson.

“We have individuals who are currently incarcerated, who have been incarcerated for decades, who have zero infractions (disciplinary reports generated within prisons) that have gone over and beyond, done everything that has been asked of them to do,” she added. “ … they’re caught in this loop because of Truth in Sentencing. If they’re not going to be paroled, give them a commutation. And then there’s individuals who have life sentences that were really, quite frankly, only due to being party to a crime where these individuals were very young at the time, and their situations deserve at least to be considered and looked at.”

Truth in Sentencing is a tough-on-crime policy from the 1990s that, in  Wisconsin, requires a mandatory period of prison time be served before release, with no discretion given to a parole board that in previous years had the authority to review the status of prisoners and could authorize early release.

The reality today for those sentenced after Dec. 31, 1999, when Truth in Sentencing took effect, is that the possibility of early release has become very remote.

A commutation by the governor would be one legal way to shorten the confinement and extended supervision for both those sentenced before and after Truth in Sentencing was implemented.

However, in Wisconsin, there is currently no process for applying for a commutation.

There is a process to apply for a pardon through the Governor’s Pardon Advisory Board, but it requires that the sentence of confinement and extended supervision have been fulfilled, followed by a five-year period of a clear record. If one meets the condition for a pardon in Wisconsin, there is no need for a commutation because the sentence has been fully served.

“When I have approached the governor’s office to even discuss commutations, I’m automatically referred to the pardon application,” said Oleson. “You are comparing apples to oranges. A pardon eliminates the conviction, a blank slate; a commutation maintains the conviction, maintains the accountability, but says you’ve served enough time. You no longer should be serving decades or years longer. You have proven you have served enough time. You still hold the conviction, but you are not chained to the DOC.”

Other voices for commutation

The ACLU of Wisconsin is encouraging Evers to exercise his authority to offer commutations in Wisconsin.

“For decades, commutations have been vastly underutilized at the state level,” said David Gwidt, deputy communication director. “Commuting sentences has gone from a relatively routine practice historically to an exceedingly rare one since the rise of mass incarceration, as governors on both sides of the aisle are reluctant to commute sentences out of fear they will be labeled as ‘soft on crime’ for doing so. But that’s starting to change in other states.”

Governors in New Jersey, Oregon, California, Alabama, and Oklahoma, have all used their commutation authority in recent years, Gwidt added.  “Commutation is a tool that can help decarcerate our overpopulated prisons, rectify unjust, wrongful or excessively long sentences, and offer incarcerated people a pathway to redemption,” he said. “We hope Gov. Evers uses his remaining time in office as an opportunity to grant commutation and clemency to those who earn a chance at freedom.”

Speaking as a member of a panel discussion on solitary confinement and conditions inside Wisconsin prisons,  on Sunday, Oct. 12 in Madison, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), a candidate for governor, said commutations should be used for those who have been incarcerated for decades and are no longer a threat to society.

“Just in general, I think the clemency powers have been very underutilized in Wisconsin,” she said. “We have people who have been incarcerated for decades and decades. People age out of crime… and now you have people, some of whom have terminal and chronic illnesses. They are in their 60s, their 70s, their 80s, and they could easily and very safely live back with their loved ones after many decades of incarceration. And yet they are being denied this and then state taxpayers are being asked to essentially fund their incarceration and their health care.”

National discussion

In a July 13, 2025 op-ed in the New York Times, “Governors, Use Your Clemency Power,” CUNY law professor Steven Zeidman wrote:

“President Trump is making shameless use of his constitutional clemency power, rewarding insurrectionists, cronies, campaign contributors and sundry others. But this is not the only problem. Mr. Trump’s acts of commission are paralleled by American governors’ acts of omission. Even though they control the bulk of the country’s prison population and typically have the power to grant clemency, many governors have consistently failed to exercise the power of forgiveness, to all of our detriment.”

Zeidman notes that of the two million people currently in confinement in the United States, most are in state prisons, under the authority of governors.

Zeidman, who has pursued over 100 commutations in New York and won 21, talked to the Wisconsin Examiner about the reluctance he sees in governors to exercise their constitutional authority.

Addressing the perception of being soft on crime, Zeidman said it might be easier for Republicans who have established a tough-on-crime posture to offer commutation. That might be why the last commutation in Wisconsin was under Thompson, a tough-on-crime Republican.

According to a 2023 report, “Executive Clemency Power in Wisconsin” by Jillian Slaight for the Legislative Reference Bureau, Thompson commuted the sentence of seven people serving parole, stating, “further supervision would serve no useful purpose.”

The same report found that Gov. Patrick Lucey, a Democrat who served from 1971 to 1977, issued 177 commutations, including one to a man who had failed to provide child support. Lucey stated that sending the man back to prison prevented him from working and providing support.

Democratic Gov. Gaylord Nelson, who served from 1959 to 1963, issued 27 commutations for people he considered “rehabilitated.”

Cautionary tales vs. data

Zeidman and others who advocate for commutations argue that those eligible for commutation should undergo rigorous screening, including having members of the victims’ families and the district attorney participate in the commutation process.

“There should be a real careful vetting process,” he says, adding, “I would say to Wisconsin, have a very careful vetting process, go over it with a fine-tooth comb, and at the end of the day, it’s not going to be none (who are eligible for commutation) and it’s not going to be thousands either.”

Zeidman and the advocates say reincarceration rates are low for those who have served long sentences.

The Wisconsin DOC’s data on reincarceration shows a notable decrease for those who have served five years or more in prison.

A study prepared for the New York City Council in 2023 called “Justice on Aging” also noted older residents in prison tend not to return: “Nationwide, 43.3 percent of all released individuals recidivate within three years, while only seven percent of those aged 50-64 and four percent over 65 return to prison for new convictions—the lowest rates among all incarcerated age demographics.”

“It’s a fact, people age out of crime,” Zeidman says.

Another argument for restoring the possibility of early release is that rewarding good behaviour with commutations motivates more good behavior in prison.

“Give people an incentive to improve themselves and get on with their lives,” says Tom Denk, an advocate for WISDOM who has served time in prison.

“It does seem that too many governors are thinking about clemency and commutation in particular as a political act instead of an act of mercy or grace,” says Jennifer Soble, executive director of the Illinois Prison Project, who represents clients in Illinois who have a case for early release.  “And so they are shying away from commutations on the statistically very unlikely event that a commutation could end up harming them politically, and that’s a real tragedy, because we are talking about real human beings who are living their lives in prison, many of whom are doing so under the extraordinarily unjust circumstances.”

Soble says many in Illinois prisons received long sentences, even life sentences, under older laws, but if processed today, their sentences would not be as extreme.

As an example of how laws have changed in Illinois, she says, formerly, any death during a pursuit of a crime by law enforcement, such as the police chasing a suspect and firing a weapon, killing an innocent person, could result in murder charges to the suspect being pursued, even if the suspect had not directly participated in the death.

“And the only way for those folks to get out is through clemency and there’s no other path,” she says, “and so although I understand political caution, especially in these very challenging times, that caution cannot come at the expense of a person’s entire life.”

Zeidman also notes there is movement across the country to take a second look at sentences. In Wisconsin, a bill that stalled in 2024 would review the life sentences without parole for those who were convicted while they were under 18 years of age but were prosecuted as adults.

“The prison system is intentionally sort of secreted away,” says Soble.  “Incarcerated people are not visible on purpose. And so your average person walking down the street is not thinking about, you know, is there or is there not a reasonably plausible way for an incarcerated person who shouldn’t be in prison to come home?”

Before he left office, President Joe Biden issued one of the largest commutations of all time for 2,500 people in the federal Bureau of Prisons system who had committed non-violent crimes.

“The recidivism rate of that group has been extraordinarily low,” says Soble of the 2,500 Biden commuted. “That effort saved taxpayer dollars. It made good sense. It was a good policy decision. It was also a just and humane decision, but governors at the state level have been just pretty unwilling to follow suit, even in cases that feel very, very obvious.”

Criminal Justice Fellow Andrew Kennard contributed to this report.

Advocates push Gov. Evers to issue first commutations in 25 years was originally published by the Wisconsin Examiner.