A state lawyer’s advice not to manually calculate prison releases in light of technical issues — which led to the early release of 3,000 inmates, one of whom killed a Bellevue woman at a time when he should have been incarcerated — “failed the people of Washington and our client, the Department of Corrections,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in an investigative report of his office.
“Even in a culture of excellence, serious mistakes can happen,” Ferguson said in a statement accompanying the results of his office’s internal investigation released April 7.
Former Assistant Attorney General Rhonda Larson reportedly told the state Department of Corrections that it would be “reasonable” for the department “not to manually fix” the incorrectly calculated sentences and should instead wait for the prison sentence calculating program to be fixed.
Larson appeared to believe that the programming error would be resolved in a few months and had been told by the department records manager in December 2012 that it could possibly be completed in 90 days.
Three years
In reality, the reprogramming did not occur for three years.
Between December 2011 and December 2015, more than 1,500 inmates were erroneously released from prison early.
Approximately 80 of those inmates went on to commit other crimes or violate law enforcement requirements set upon them at their release.
Among them was Robert T. Jackson, who is accused of having killed a Bellevue resident and mother in a hit-and-run crash that occurred when he should still have been incarcerated.
Jackson is currently in jail awaiting trial in Hill’s death. He will have to finish the time owed on his previous sentence, regardless of the outcome of his trial.
3,200 inmates
In all, 3,200 inmates were accidentally released between 2002 and 2015.
Both Ferguson and Gov. Jay Inslee ordered separate investigations into the issue in December.
“The early release of thousands of prisoners over 13 years was caused by a series of errors coupled with bureaucratic incompetence, systemic failures of process and management, and an inexplicable failure both on an institutional and individual level to appreciate the fact that releasing even one inmate early, let alone thousands, undermined the core mission of the Department of Correction, which is to protect the public,” said the governor’s report, which was compiled by Carl Blackstone and Bob Westinghouse.
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Allison Deangelis is reporter for the Bellevue Reporter, a Sound Publishing newspaper. She can be reached at deangelis@bellevuereporter.com or 425-453-4290.
