A work crew from a concrete company had spent the mild autumn day repairing cracks in the sidewalks in the small Wisconsin city of Baraboo. Now, on the 60-mile drive home, one of the weary men in the truck checked his cellphone to see if he had any email.

He did. From the Office of the Governor, Tony Evers.

Dear Mr. Pizer:

The Pardon Advisory Board has recommended to the Governor that you receive a pardon for Grant County case number 04CF139. The Governor accepted the Board’s recommendation.

Since you are one of the first applicants to be pardoned in Wisconsin in over eight years, Governor Evers would like to invite you to be present as he signs the pardon paperwork on October 7, 2019, at 3 PM. …

Eric Pizer lowered his phone, exhaled, and said the words he’d waited more than a decade to say:

“I got my pardon.”

His co-workers in the truck congratulated him. “Good for you, man,” he recalled them saying. “That’s awesome.”

They drove on. Mr. Pizer gave his girlfriend a quick call, but decided to wait before telephoning his mother. That promised to be a much longer conversation about the consequences of a September night 15 years ago.

One night. One moment. One punch.

Back then Mr. Pizer was a 23-year-old Marine sergeant just two days fresh from his second tour of duty in Iraq, where he had overseen tank and truck fueling in a combat zone. He decided to unwind with a couple of friends and a couple of beers in Boscobel, a small city of 3,200 known as the birthplace of the Gideon Bible.

But his R & R was disrupted by a heated misunderstanding over whether someone — not Mr. Pizer — had gotten too friendly with a man’s wife. In the shove-and-shout confusion that followed, the out-of-towner Mr. Pizer, 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, threw one punch, breaking the nose of a local resident, Steven Frazier, 5-foot-10 and 140 pounds.

Mr. Frazier was taken to the hospital; Mr. Pizer, into custody.

The Marine finished the last three months of his hitch in North Carolina, and returned to face a felony charge of substantial battery that a county prosecutor, Anthony J. Pozorski Sr., declined to reduce. One minute he’d been a proud Marine; the next, a convicted felon denied certain rights, including ownership or possession of a gun.

Mr. Pizer completed a probation sentence, made financial restitution and went on with life. He married, fathered a son, divorced. He worked as a laborer, a landscaper, a piano mover, anything that paid the bills.

After a few years, he asked Mr. Pozorski to consider reducing the conviction to a misdemeanor, but the prosecutor again declined. Interested now in becoming a police officer — which would require him to carry a gun — Mr. Pizer embraced the motto of his state: “Forward.” He earned an associate degree in criminal justice and — with the help of two Madison lawyers, David D. Relles and John R. Zwieg — prepared an application for a pardon.

He reached out to his victim, Mr. Frazier, but received no response. “I wasn’t quite ready,” Mr. Frazier later recalled.

Then, in 2014, in a moment arranged by a restorative-justice organization and later described by a This Land column in The New York Times, the two men met at Boscobel’s community center. Mr. Pizer apologized. Mr. Frazier explained that his damaged nose had to be reset twice, that the injury had altered his looks and breathing, and that he often suffered from migraines.

Still, the victim forgave his assailant. They shook hands.

But the timing was exquisitely bad to be seeking a pardon in Wisconsin. The governor, a Republican with presidential aspirations named Scott Walker, had decided not to grant any pardons at all, even though previous governors had routinely exercised this constitutional power to forgive.

From January 2011 until January 2019, then, Wisconsin was the state that refused to pardon.

Mr. Pizer had no hope of a pardon. That is, until Governor Walker, whose candidacy for president lasted two months in 2015, lost his seat in 2018 to a Democrat, Tony Evers, who believed in the grace of pardons.

Mr. Pizer, now 38 and working for a concrete company, sought official forgiveness once again. With the help of his lawyers, he filled out the detailed application and included several letters of recommendation. The sentencing judge supported the request, but the prosecutor opposed it, arguing that the applicant was trying to rewrite history.

In late September, Mr. Pizer presented his case to the recently resurrected Pardon Advisory Board at the State Capitol in Madison. He wore his black suit, his only suit, and struggled to steady his nerves. Reading his prepared statement, he briefly wept, but recovered.

He said that he wanted to apologize, again, to his victim, Mr. Frazier. That he had taken responsibility for his actions, paid the many consequences and been a good citizen — “other than the one incident for which I seek your forgiveness.” That he’d always wanted to work in law enforcement, and a pardon would allow him to pursue that dream.

“It would allow me to reclaim my good name,” he said. “It would allow me to start over.”

Mr. Pizer returned to wearing Walmart jeans, work boots and a company T-shirt. He patched more sidewalk cracks while waiting to hear whether the state would patch this crack in his past.

Then came the email.

On a recent Monday afternoon, Mr. Pizer put on his suit again and returned to the State Capitol. Joining him were several people, including his mother and her husband, his girlfriend and his lawyers. They were led into the quiet of the governor’s office.

“It was closed to the press,” Mr. Relles, one of Mr. Pizer’s lawyers, recalled. “And apolitical.”

The governor asked the anxious petitioner a few general questions, and thanked him for this opportunity. Then he signed the proclamation of pardon and posed for photographs.

“Sounds corny, but it feels amazing,” Mr. Pizer later said. “I have all my freedoms back. The only thing that will stop me now is myself.”

The ceremony of justice and mercy ended with more handshakes, and a new Eric Pizer walked forward into the fresh autumn air.

Source: Read Full Article