“Magic” Appeal Letter Wins Life-Changing Pardon from Governor

PROBLEM

A father approached me in earnest some years ago about helping his young adult biological son, whom he had abandoned as a child, after a dispute with the mother. The son, whom I’ll call Don (not his real name), had had a rough childhood. After his biological father abandoned him at an early age, he was subsequently abused for many years — physically and emotionally — by a disturbed stepfather.

He enlisted in the military, largely as a way of escaping his family situation at home. While out on furlough on one occasion and under the influence of alcohol, he committed a felony offense. An older soldier, whom he had come to regard as a father figure, directed him to enter a stranger’s hotel room, while carrying a gun. An altercation inside the room followed, after which Don stole some personal property and fled. Poor legal representation resulted in Don’s becoming marked for life with a felony conviction (he told me that he was actually eligible for something known as “deferred acceptance of guilt”).

In the years that followed, Don gradually got his life together. He maintained steady employment at a major multinational corporation, where his supervisor valued his work ethic and reliability. Eventually, in part through his foray into the study of martial arts, Don discovered what he believed to be his true calling in life: a career in the field of “executive protection” (a kind of body guard). There was one major problem, however: the job called for carrying a firearm, which Don was prohibited for life from doing because of his felony conviction (he was also prohibited from voting).

SOLUTION

That’s where I came in, as what Don’s father hoped would be the provider of a solution to this significant obstacle. The idea was that I would help Don write a letter appealing for a pardon from the governor of the state where Don had committed the offense, been convicted and imprisoned.

This was a challenge, for several reasons. I don’t know the statistics but I do know that many requests for pardons are not granted. There was certainly no doubt about the fact that Don had committed a serious offense. He had stayed out of trouble with the law since his release from prison but he had no record of exemplary public service that could have helped to make such an appeal easier. In addition to representing a challenge, writing the letter of appeal was also a weighty responsibility. Don had only one shot at a pardon. If he didn’t get one, he would be stuck with the conviction record for the rest of his life and his career dream would never be fulfilled.

I told Don and his father that I sincerely believed that if anyone could help write an effective appeal letter, I could do it. At the time same, however, I emphasized that I could offer no guarantees. Based on the writing and consulting work I had done for the father — a successful businessman — during the preceding years, they decided to entrust the job to me. I sat down for several hours with Don, interviewing him about his life story and especially the unfortunate incident in the hotel the day of his crime. I asked a lot of questions and took copious notes. After our meeting, I also researched the governor to whom the appeal would be addressed and the precedents and available case histories. None of this information would be mentioned in the letter, of course, but it was important background information. In stages, through multiple drafts, I wrote up an appeal letter that I believed represented Don’s best chance for getting the pardon.

RESULT If you think my task ended there, you’d be mistaken. Don did what many people do in such a situation: They show the letter around to others, soliciting their comments. To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with that in itself but it creates a problem: The people who are asked for feedback typically feel duty bound to criticize what they have been shown. That’s because they’re concerned that if they just say they believe the letter is good, the friend asking for their advice may think that they’re just being lazy and not showing sufficient concern.

During the days that followed my sending Don the letter I had carefully crafted for him, I received an ongoing barrage of objections voiced by Don’s committee of readers: The letter should not say such and such. Instead, it should say so and so. It was too short. It was too long. It was too emotional. It was not emotional enough. There seemed to be no end to the second guessing and stream of objections but I just handled each one as it came in, explaining in each case the thinking behind what I had written.

“Of course, it’s your life, Don,” I said, “and I fully support the idea that you do whatever in your wisdom impresses you as best. I’m just telling you what I sincerely believe, based on my knowledge and experience, to constitute the best chance for your desired outcome.” Fortunately for Don, after extensive deliberations, he ultimately decided to send the letter just as I had written it. I say “fortunately” because, the governor, after some delay, granted him a full pardon, wiping the criminal conviction from his record. The pardon also restored Don’s right to vote and legally carry a firearm. “I was totally floored when I got the letter,” Don told me by email. “I actually cried like a baby. For the first time in my adult life, I feel like a free man.” With his new lease on life, Don was finally able to work at his dream job, enjoying the existence that he had craved for so long. If you read the letter (from which all personal information has been expunged), it might impress you as flowing so smoothly that it seems to have almost written itself. I can assure you, though, that many hours and many drafts preceded the final product.

As with all the other case histories presented in my portfolio, many factors came into play in arriving at the end result. But what ultimately made my work product successful was its high degree of persuasiveness. THE SAME GUIDING PRINCIPLE PROBABLY APPLIES TO WHATEVER PROJECT YOU MAY HAVE IN MIND AT THIS TIME: Regardless of the nature of the project, success will hinge upon effective messaging — PERSUASION of your audience, in other words, into believing what you are telling them. That’s the name of the game. It’s what I do and why they pay me the big bucks, so to speak.