Governor Tony Evers on Friday granted commutations to 14 people, including 10 convicted of murder, marking the first such action by a Wisconsin governor in more than a quarter century.
The grants, recommended by the Governor’s Commutation Advisory Board after hearings in August and September, do not guarantee immediate release. Many of those whose sentences were commuted remain subject to parole review.
Among them is Michael Maldonado, who was 15 when convicted in 1995 of first-degree intentional homicide as party to a crime in a Jefferson County murder-for-hire plot. Educator Diane Borchardt hired teens to kill her husband, and Maldonado obtained the shotgun used to kill Ruben Borchardt. Maldonado received a sentence of life in prison eligibility for parole in 2044.
A 2025 court ruling, based on evidence that Maldonado was not the shooter, made him eligible sooner. His commutation limits him to no more than four more years before transitioning to parole.
The four commutations that were not for murder involved drug, robbery, burglary and arson offenses.
Evers reinstated the commutation process this year through executive orders after it had been unused for decades. Applicants generally needed to have served at least half their sentence or 20 years of a life term and shown rehabilitation. Ten of 24 people heard by the board were denied.
Retiring Sen. Van Waggaard blasted the commutatons in a statement Friday afternoon.
“Coming soon to a neighborhood near you,” he said of the killers whose sentences Evers commuted. “The arrogance of Governor Evers to overrule Judges, District Attorneys and victims is absurd. ‘No Kings?’ Like Hell. This is the even more king-like than raising taxes for four hundred years.
“These aren’t ‘non-violent offenses’ that Evers commuted. They killed people. They traumatized victims, families, and communities. They were prosecuted by elected District Attorneys, and sentenced by elected judges, almost all of which opposed any commutation. Instead, lame duck Governor Evers and his unelected cronies think they know better than the people involved. It’s disgusting.”
