The Racine County District Attorney, Patricia Hanson, is raising serious concern about Gov. Tony Evers’ newly announced commutation process after three convicted killers, a 7th offense or more drunk driver, a gun offender, and heroin dealer sent notices to her office that they are seeking commutations from the governor.
Evers’ new guidelines, announced through executive order on April 3, specifically allow convicted killers to qualify after serving only 20 years of their sentences, and three killers are taking him up on it in Racine so far. Evers does not have to grant the commutations. However, the governor previously pledged to release half of the prison population.
We asked Evers office on May 2 for a list of those seeking commutations. No response. So we turned to DAs instead.
Terry L. Jackson, Kamau Damali, and Samuel Booker are the homicide offenders who notified Hanson’s office that they’ve applied. Although Hanson and other DAs believe that Evers’ new process could lead to a flood of such applications, the media have shown little interest in scrutinizing who is actually applying and the governor has instituted no transparent process for the public to assess it. The DAs, whose offices are already short-staffed, can object, and Hanson plans to, but they can’t block the governor from releasing the inmates, if he chooses.
One of the inmates, in a statement posted to the Internet, stressed his abusive and dysfunctional childhood.
In a statement to WRN, Hanson expressed a number of concerns about Evers’ commutation process, including victim notification, erosion of public trust, separation of powers concerns, the lack of information sent to DAs, and undermining of truth-in-sentencing. As of May 12, she had received eight commutation requests (see the list in full below), but she and other DAs expect a flurry of them to come down the pike as inmates gather sentencing transcripts and application materials.
“Supporters often frame commutation as a necessary safety valve, but Wisconsin already has mechanisms for appeal, post-conviction relief, and parole considerations (where applicable),” she wrote. “The real story to accompany this issue is how broadly the Earned Release Program is being abused under this administration by the Governor and the Department of Corrections. Significant time cuts are being given to inmates every day behind the scenes. Broadening executive power risks duplicating or bypassing those structured processes in favor of a more discretionary, less transparent one.”
“Even if used sparingly by a Governor, the power to commute prison sentences invites questions about consistency and fairness—especially when different governors may apply it very differently,” Hanson added. “The current Governor has made it clear he intends to use it liberally, as he has proven over and over again by granting wholesale pardons. Communities and victims deserve better than what ever changing politics brings from the executive branch.”
She added: “Finally, there’s the issue of public trust. A justice system that says one thing at sentencing and delivers something else later erodes confidence, particularly among victims who were promised certainty. Even well-intentioned uses of commutation can feel arbitrary from the outside if the criteria aren’t clear and consistently applied. I also have questions about what kind of notice are victims actually being given?… Does the Wisconsin Constitution and Marsy’s Law not apply to the Governor’s Staff or even the Commutation Advisory Board?”
The governor’s executive order makes the notification requirement for victims shorter than the requirement for old paroles, which was lengthened after victims raised concerns about short notification times. It also indicates that victims will be notified only if they have registered with a state notification system.
That was not all.
“The Governor’s process requires a Defendant to do nothing more than send the Judge and District Attorney a form to sign and return,” Hanson wrote. “There is no requirement that the full application be provided to the judge and prosecutor to allow us to make an informed decision, it is just encouraged.”
“As you can imagine, I rarely receive them from Defendants and I have to guess as to why a request should even be considered. I have complained about the pardon process for this reason since Governor Evers took office and nothing has changed and the commutation process is exactly the same form. Without more information, I am forced to say no to nearly every pardon request.” (Pardons are different from commutations; commutations occur while a person is serving their sentence.)
District Attorneys throughout Wisconsin have started to receive commutation requests since Evers announced on April 3 that he was reigniting the gubernatorial commutation process in Wisconsin for the first time in 25 years. Although governors all possess the authority, he doesn’t have to use it, and he chooses who qualifies.
Per his executive order, the inmates, not the state, are required to notify DAs and judges that they are seeking a commutation. Evers exempted only sex offenders and child abusers from applying. He also included a loophole in his executive order to allow requests to bypass the commutation board he created, sending them directly to his chief lawyer and then his desk. Some in the criminal justice system are concerned that the governor is poised to speed through releases before leaving office. Old law parole hearings must now be listed on the Internet; that’s not true of commutation requests.
Inmates with non-life sentences have to serve just half of their sentences to qualify. None of this is sitting right with DA Hanson.
These are the commutation notices received by Racine County, as of May 12:
Samuel Booker, filed May 8, 2026. 08CF962
Booker was convicted of 1st degree reckless homicide. On 02-22-2010, he received a prison sentence of 21 years. Multiple other charges were dismissed.
“The charges against Booker arose from an incident in which he was alleged to have fired multiple gunshots at a car in the parking lot of a Racine gas station, killing one of the passengers,” court records say.
Charles Brown, filed May 6, 2026. 14CF375
Court records show he was convicted of felony heroin dealing. In 2014, he received 20 years in state prison. (He also has convictions for felon in possession of a firearm and heroin dealing out of Milwaukee from 2014, for which he received four years in prison.)
Nicholas L. Beachem, filed April 26, 2026. 23CF1294
He was convicted in 2023 of possessing a firearm as a felon, repeater, and felony cocaine dealing. On March 15, 2024, he was sentenced to six years in prison total for the two charges.
Beachem has a long list of felony charges in the system. His previous convictions were for car theft; cocaine dealing; bail jumping and cocaine dealing; escape; cocaine dealing; two more counts of cocaine dealing; cocaine dealing; and auto theft. Those are different cases. He was returned to prison after being released from extended supervision before.
Mose C. Cox, filed April 26, 2026. 20CF534
He is seeking commutation for felony fleeing an officer and two counts of misdemeanor bail jumping. A string of other charges were dismissed but read in at sentencing, including possessing a firearm as a felon repeater. His mandatory release date is listed as 2028.
He has a lengthy record, including: car theft; marijuana possession; resisting; possessing a firearm as a felon; fleeing officer; strangulation/suffocation; disorderly conduct; disorderly conduct; battery; bail jumping; 3rd offense OWI; hit and run.
Terry L. Jackson, filed May 6, 2026. 92CF14
He was convicted of 1st degree murder in 1992. That’s the case with the commutation request. His case is under appeal, and he has a string of other cases that are not available on ccap, save for a battery case. He is serving a life sentence with a parole eligibility date in 2042. Jackson claims he was wrongfully convicted.
Randall Morgan D. AKA Kamau TZ Damali, filed May 7, 2026. 93CF1211
He has been seeking a commutation from Evers since 2018, but there was no process set up until now.
It appears he is listed in prison records as Raynell Morgan AKA Kamau Damali. They say he is serving a life sentence. The case number listed for Kamau Damali in the Racine commutation notice matches this inmate. It confirms he was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in 1994.
He wrote, in part: “My name is Kamau T.Z. Damali, born Raynell D Morgan, I’m 42 years old now, but was seventeen when I was arrested for 1st degree Intentional Homicide November 2nd 1993 and seventeen going when I was sentenced to life June 27th , 2019, Insha Allah (God willing). I caught my case in Racine but I was born in Gary, Indiana September 10th , 1976. I became a member of the Black Gangsters Disciples at the age of seven, October 21, 1983.”
Added Damali: “I came from a broken home. Most gangs are comprised of individuals from broken homes, lost outside of themselves and looking around to be part of something. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in and out of mental institutions and psychiatric group homes. I was molested by a relative from the age of seven to eleven, witnessed my best friend Super Kool gunned down in front of me in November of 1982, while I was six years old. I have seen death and destruction up close and I was numbed by the social ills of society and consequently had no regard for human life.”
He wrote: “August 14th, 1993, a friend told me he was robbed, that a lady and male companion took his money. He wanted me to help him get it back. We confronted the lady. Things got out of hand and we murdered her. At the time I felt nothing, at that time it didn’t occur to me the Black woman is the essence of who I am, that in killing her I killed my mother, grandmother, aunt sister, daughter, wife etc- I essentially killed myself.”
Heather A. Ruisch, Filed May 6, 2026. 19CF1425
She was convicted of operating a vehicle under a restricted controlled substance, 7th offense or more. In 2023, she received four years in prison. She has a lengthy criminal history, including for: resisting; criminal damage to property; OWI 5th plus; OWI 5th or 6th; OWI 7th plus.
The DA Says the Commutation Process Is ‘Unacceptable’
“Thanks to Governor Tommy Thompson in 1998, Wisconsin has for decades based expectations on a sentencing system that provided clarity, consistency, and transparency. Expanding the Governor’s power to commute sentences cuts against those principles in a way that is unacceptable given the law as it is written,” Hanson continued.
“Truth in Sentencing was designed to ensure that the punishment handed down in court is the punishment actually served. Victims, families, and communities are told—up front—what a sentence means, without hidden reductions or back-end changes,” she added.
“When you broaden executive authority to shorten sentences after the fact, you reintroduce uncertainty into a system that was explicitly passed by the legislature to remove it. I also have a separation-of-powers concern. Sentencing is primarily a judicial function, shaped by statutes passed by the legislature,” Hanson said.
“Expanding the governor’s commutation authority shifts that balance, giving a single elected official and his unelected board, the ability to override decisions made by the circuit court through a more fair, deliberative and informed process. All parties at a sentencing are heard by a Judge who knows his or her community best, sees victims with their own eyes, and understands fully the effect that a sentence has on all parties.”
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