RG comment. Four years later, Scott Walker is still running against Jim Doyle, so don't expect our current Governor, full of stubbornness and lacking compassion, to change his policy not to grant pardons. The weenie wants to look like a tough guy. He's compensating, in other words.
Jim Doyle issued 63 pardons during his first four years of office but had picked up the pace by the time he left, as the table below clearly indicates. In 2 years, though, from 2008 to 2010, the number of clemency requests he had to consider more than tripled.
These pardons were not issued willy-nilly.
Here's how Donald Leo Bach, Gov. Tommy Thompson's first legal counsel, describes the process in a 2005 Wisconsin Lawyer article, "To forgive, divine: The Governor's pardoning power",
To prevent the governor from being inundated with applications, to insulate the governor during the application process, and to provide a system that carefully evaluates the merits of each application, recent governors have established a screening panel or board by executive order. Typically, the governor's legal counsel (or other designee) chairs the board.
Along with establishing a Pardon Advisory Board, the governor can promulgate a set of rules or procedures for applying for a pardon to supplement those established by the legislature.
Walker, of course, has not established such an advisory group. He has no insulation, in other words. For this reason, the odds are not good that Eric Pizer, a decorated Iraq war veteran, will achieve his dream of a career in law enforcement.
Here's the tally for Jim Doyle's predecessors in the Governor's office going back to 1979.
For more information, see Wisconsin State Law Library: Pardons.
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