Pardon would help put crimes behind him

The Ohio Parole Board hearing room was hot enough to make Mickey Tate sweat, if he wasn’t already.

Tate, 62, was seeking a pardon Tuesday afternoon for criminal convictions that have held him back for three decades, and this hearing was the most recent hurdle in an endurance race that has lasted most of his adult life.

The board filed in.

Acting Chairwoman Trayce Thalheimer told Tate what to expect. They would talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. They would weigh his request for a pardon and within 60 days send a recommendation to Gov. Mike Dewine.

“Then it is in the hands of the governor,” she said. “He has the final say.”

Tate’s case is not the sort that comes to mind at the mention of a pardon. Hollywood has us believe that pardons are sought only by Death Row inmates desperate to avoid their date with the executioner.

In Ohio, the governor can choose to grant a pardon as “an act of grace or forgiveness that relieves the person pardoned from some or all of the ramifications of lawful punishment. ... Pardons do not erase or seal a conviction; a pardon forgives guilt.”

That is what Tate is asking for.

It might sound largely symbolic for a man who avoided prison at his sentencing in 1989. What does it matter, at this late date?

When Tate was convicted that year of several felonies, a compassionate judge sentenced him to drug treatment instead of prison. Then 32 years old, Tate did not squander his second chance. He spent a year in treatment, stayed away from drugs and alcohol, and went on to raise six children and three stepchildren, largely on his own. He became a mentor for young men in his neighborhood, and a role model for family and friends from all walks of life.

For Tate, a pardon is more than symbolic, because he knows what so many other felons do. Striking off in a new direction is not easy when you are shackled to a felony record.

“I want to move away from it,” he told the board.

For much of the hearing, he was forced to do the opposite, by design.

He explained how he’d had his life together after two years in the Air Force but then went off the rails when his father died in 1988.

“I couldn’t deal with it,” he said. “I was mad at the world.”

He fell into drug addiction. He walked Mickey Tate told the Ohio Parole Board regarding his felony record of 30 years ago: “I want to move away from it.” through the details of the day that led to his arrest and conviction on charges that included drug possession and carrying a concealed weapon.

“I’m not that guy, but I was that guy that day.”

He was asked to explain even his traffic tickets — “I may have a little heavy foot” — and citations for parking a car on a city street without tags. He was advised, to his surprise and that of his lawyer and close friend, John Alden, that there was an open warrant for his arrest in connection with an 18-year-old zoning violation.

Carla Jones, 48, had heard enough. When it was her turn to speak, Tate’s oldest niece fought tears as she testified to the positive and unwavering force her uncle has been in her life.

“It’s easy to read off a list of things that he did when he wasn’t in his right mind,” she said. “If I tell somebody my uncle is Mickey Tate, I’m proud of it.”

“Ever since that misstep, my brother has kept moving forward,” said his sister, Jacqueline Tate.

There was no Hollywood ending on Tuesday. The board delayed its decision until Alden could resolve the old but apparently open warrant.

In the parking lot afterward, Tate said he wasn’t sure whether he’d said the right things. But he was sure that he’s done them. His children, stepchildren, younger relatives such as Jones, were proof.

“And I’ve done that with fumes,” he said.

That will remain his course, with or without a pardon. Moving forward and “away from it,” sometimes with little more in the tank than sheer determination, and grace.