Tate gets outpouring of support for pardon
Disoriented by a deep personal loss, Mickey Tate lost his moral bearings only briefly. The consequences have weighed on him for more than 30 years.
Come Tuesday afternoon, in a hearing room of the Ohio Parole Board on West Broad Street, he will ask the board to pardon him so he can set that burden down for good.
It took years of preparation and a broad network of family and friends to reach this point, where Tate will make his second bid for clemency. With heavy-hitters like Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’brien and former state Rep. Jim Hughes, a Republican from Upper Arlington, in his corner, he thinks the odds might be in his favor.
But if the odds work against him? Then Tate, 62, will do what he has done throughout his life, what he did when he set a world record at the Arnold Classic in 1998.
He will pick up the weight. Everything about Tate seems solid. When he shakes your hand, you get the impression he could break your fingers if he wanted to. His voice is deep and his gaze penetrating.
He could use all of these features to intimidate, but he doesn’t seem to have that in him. If you knew him well enough, as attorney John Alden does, you might even get away with calling Tate “cuddly.”
Alden is a lawyer and shareholder in the Grandview-area firm Luper Neidenthal & Logan. He met Tate in 1992 at Grant Fitness Center, where Tate worked as a trainer. Tate had a knack for making friends, and he made plenty there. Alden liked him right away.
“Me and John, we have a strong connection,” Tate said.
Tate grew up in Columbus, one of eight children. He said he was raised right, excelled at sports and entered the U.S. Air Force after high school. He was about 32 years old, physically fit and working at Navistar when his father died. He fell apart.
“My dad was my everything,” he said. “A part of me wanted to die.”
Tate turned to drugs. In a matter of months, he was locked up on charges of drug possession and carrying a concealed weapon. But he woke up behind the bars at Franklin County Jail and decided right away that this would not be his future.
“I had my whole cell doing push-ups,” he said.
On the outside, his family rallied. Noting their support and Tate’s military service, the judge gave him the option of drug treatment, warning
that any slip meant prison.
Tate didn’t slip. He stayed in treatment for a year and steered clear of trouble when he came home.
Ultimately he raised his six children, largely on his own, and he rattles off their athletic and academic accomplishments with pride. He kept them in line and active, whether it was wrestling, dance lessons or writing programs at the Thurber House. He taught them to set goals and work hard. He kept the family in their Milo-grogan neighborhood to keep them grounded, so they would not forget that life was a struggle and nothing worthwhile came easy. He mentored neighborhood kids, training them in the gym he built in his garage.
“Without my dad, I would not be who I am,” said Tate’s third-oldest son, Hannibal. “And I love who I am.”
Now 24, Hannibal graduated from Notre Dame College outside Cleveland in December and is preparing for law school.
Tate is not a complainer, but he admits that it has been hard to make ends meet. Job prospects always have been limited because of his criminal record; prospects will seem strong, only to evaporate without explanation. He’s worked as a trainer, a security guard, an Uber
driver. Whatever it takes.
Alden practices transportation law, so criminal courtroom procedure and clemency were not his forte. But he sought help and advice from Capital University Law School and other central Ohio lawyers like John Marshall, Fred Gittes and Derrick Day, who also have known Tate for years.
The parole board denied Tate’s first request for clemency in 2014 without holding a hearing, so they’re already ahead this time. Alden is encouraged by the endorsements of former Rep. Hughes and Prosecutor O’brien, who wrote, “The way his friends and family have spoken about him in these letters can only result from being a lighthouse within the community.”
“With this type of support, we’re going to make it happen,” Alden said.
The board has 60 days to send a recommendation to the governor’s office. Regardless of the outcome, Tate is humbled by the sustained effort to do right by him and his children.
“I can never repay them,” Tate said, adding that he can, however, pay it forward. “It’s a powerful suggestion of what America can be.”
tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker