OLYMPIA \u2014 A Washington state corrections staffer noticed earlier this year that a Pierce County offender guilty of third-degree child rape might be released six months too soon from community supervision. The agency staffer, worried that the offender\u2019s sentencing order might be incorrect, dashed off an email seeking clarification from the Pierce County Prosecutor\u2019s Office. Officials with the state Department of Corrections (DOC) say what happened next is all too common: The DOC staffer never heard back from the county.<\/p>\n
DOC clarification letters<\/strong><\/p>\n When the state Department of Corrections has a question about an offender\u2019s prison or community supervision sentence, the agency asks the county prosecutor for guidance. But corrections officials say they often don\u2019t get a response. Here are some of the counties that failed to respond to many of the DOC requests in 2015:<\/p>\n Pierce County: Didn\u2019t respond to 51 of 79 letters.<\/p>\n King County: Didn\u2019t respond to 45 of 86 letters.<\/p>\n Spokane County: Didn\u2019t respond to 45 of 73 letters.<\/p>\n Thurston County: Didn\u2019t respond to 29 of 41 letters.<\/p>\n Snohomish County: Didn\u2019t respond to 28 of 47 letters.<\/p>\n Source: Washington state Department of Corrections<\/p>\n DOC sends hundreds of such clarification letters to counties across the state every year, asking for guidance on sentences given to offenders entering the prison and community supervision system.<\/p>\n The requests often go ignored, DOC officials say, leaving corrections staffers to interpret court sentencing orders that are confusing, illegible \u2014 or even incorrect.<\/p>\n That could mean holding an offender for too long or releasing one from prison or community supervision too early.<\/p>\n Of the 640 clarification letters DOC sent to county prosecutors in 2015, the agency says it failed to get responses to 332 of them \u2014 more than half.<\/p>\n Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland and chair of the House Public Safety Committee, called the issue \u201ca major concern.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people in prison are now serving sentences that are not following the law,\u201d said Goodman, who plans to hold a committee work session on the issue in January. \u201cWe have to really address this.\u201d<\/p>\n When an offender enters prison, the agency receives a paper document from the courts known as a judgment and sentencing form. The forms, which give the specifics about an individual offender\u2019s sentence, are entered by corrections staff into a database that calculates and tracks the sentences.<\/p>\n But the forms can come with illegible handwriting, mathematical errors or sentences that aren\u2019t consistent with state law, DOC officials say.<\/p>\n To complicate matters further, many of the state\u2019s 39 counties use their own versions of the forms. Meanwhile, state lawmakers over the years have made sentences themselves more complex by adding enhanced punishments for certain crimes.<\/p>\n Combine all those factors, and the state\u2019s criminal justice system can\u2019t guarantee that accurate sentences are being served.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are people in here, in custody, that probably have disputable release dates,\u201d said acting DOC Secretary Richard Morgan.<\/p>\n Long sentencing saga<\/strong><\/p>\n The concern about the court sentencing forms is yet another twist in the state\u2019s ongoing saga of trying to make sure prison and community-supervision sentences are accurate.<\/p>\n In 2015, Gov. Jay Inslee and DOC officials announced that for years up to 2,700 Washington offenders had been released early due to a sentence-calculating error.<\/p>\n It was a costly mistake: Two people that year were killed by released offenders who should still have been in prison. And DOC rounded up and incarcerated other offenders who had been freed early and were trying to get their lives back on track.<\/p>\n Another problem surfaced earlier this year, when officials learned of an error on a judgment and sentencing form that skewed community supervision time for some sex offenders. A review found that at least five sex offenders had been improperly released from supervision early because of that or other errors.<\/p>\n A third problem \u2014 not previously reported \u2014 affected the state\u2019s Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative program.<\/p>\n Discovered in late July by corrections staff, that problem involved incorrect calculations for some offenders serving more than one sentence. A DOC review of that problem looked at 1,327 offenders between October 2013 and August 2016 found 44 potentially affected.<\/p>\n The review found that two offenders were released early from prison. One was freed 243 days early, and was brought back into custody in August, according to the DOC. Another had been released 48 days early. That offender was on community supervision but had already been brought back to prison after violating supervision terms by the time the problem was discovered.<\/p>\n Two other offenders still in prison \u2014 each of whom would have been released about 80 days early \u2014 had their sentences lengthened to the correct amount.<\/p>\n Sentencing isn\u2019t simple<\/strong><\/p>\n Most people think a criminal sentence is simple, clear-cut: Somebody commits a crime, they\u2019re found guilty. They serve their prison or supervision time and then get released. Justice is served.<\/p>\n The reality in Washington state is far different. Prison and community-supervision sentences are built on a dizzying array of circumstances.<\/p>\n Factors include whether multiple charges should be served consecutively or concurrently. An offender could get an enhanced sentence \u2014 extra time \u2014 for certain circumstances, such as carrying a gun during a crime.<\/p>\n An offender\u2019s time spent in jail before the conviction can be credited toward a prison sentence. Time off for good behavior can also be earned while in prison, changing calculations as time goes on.<\/p>\n And then there are the forms. Many of the state\u2019s 39 counties use their own variation of court sentencing forms. DOC records staff deal with over 100 different forms \u2014 increasing the likelihood that a mistake could be made, Morgan said.<\/p>\n After DOC staffers send a question, the court systems are supposed to decide whether to make an adjustment or clarification to a sentence, or let the original form stand.<\/p>\n But DOC data show that counties across the state often don\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n In 2015, the King County Prosecutor\u2019s Office didn\u2019t respond to 45 of the 86 clarification letters sent by corrections staffers. In 34 instances where the office did respond, some change was made to offenders\u2019 sentences.<\/p>\n DOC hasn\u2019t contacted the prosecutor\u2019s office about a lack of response, said Mark Larson, chief deputy for the office\u2019s criminal division.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that was causing some difficulty, I really would have hoped they would have said something to us,\u201d Larson said.<\/p>\n Larson said he\u2019s sympathetic in cases where a corrections staffer can\u2019t read a court form due to bad handwriting. But he\u2019s more skeptical when DOC says it doesn\u2019t agree with a judge\u2019s order.<\/p>\n The Pierce County Prosecutor\u2019s Office in 2015 didn\u2019t respond to 51 of the 79 letters sent by DOC.<\/p>\n In the case of the Pierce County sex offender from earlier this year, DOC officials had a court form showing the offender getting 54 months of community supervision.<\/p>\n But corrections staff thought it should be 60 months.<\/p>\n The offender was part of the Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative, a program for those deemed to be low risk. Instead of prison time, offenders in the program serve a mix of jail time, community supervision and treatment.<\/p>\n DOC records show a corrections staffer emailed a clarification letter to a Pierce County deputy prosecutor on Jan. 29, 2016.<\/p>\n After The Seattle Times contacted the prosecutor\u2019s office in late November, that deputy prosecutor searched for DOC\u2019s email but couldn\u2019t find it, said Tim Lewis, felony division chief for the office.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that troubles me is that, either way, we need to be responding to DOC,\u201d Lewis said.<\/p>\n Pierce County has since responded about that case, said Jeremy Barclay, DOC spokesman, and the offender\u2019s community supervision was lengthened to 60 months.<\/p>\n In another case, corrections staffers think an offender from Thurston County currently serving a sentence that includes burglary charges could be released about 230 days too early, according to Barclay.<\/p>\n The offender\u2019s charges are set to run concurrently \u2014 but the agency believes they should be served consecutively, Barclay said.<\/p>\n DOC hasn\u2019t yet gotten a response on that case, Barclay said. But if the agency is correct and Thurston County doesn\u2019t respond, \u201cInstead of releasing in 2018, he\u2019ll be releasing in 2017,\u201d Barclay said.<\/p>\n The Snohomish County Prosecutor\u2019s Office didn\u2019t respond to 28 of 47 clarification letters sent in 2015, according to DOC data.<\/p>\n The county tries to be responsive, said Joan Cavagnaro, chief criminal deputy prosecutor.<\/p>\n \u201cIf DOC does not get a timely response from someone in my office, the matter should be brought to the attention of the individual\u2019s supervisor,\u201d Cavagnaro wrote. But, \u201cI have not been contacted by DOC regarding such letters for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n Corrections staffers don\u2019t have the time to keep asking about issues after they don\u2019t hear a response, Barclay said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure we have the resources to file multiple inquiries,\u201d he said, \u201cor if that\u2019s even our role.\u201d<\/p>\n Streamlined forms sought<\/strong><\/p>\n Morgan said he hopes state lawmakers can find a way to streamline court forms in the legislative session that starts in January.<\/p>\n One possibility would be to create a consistent work sheet that counties can prepare along with their own court forms. That would allow records staff to work from a single type of document.<\/p>\n Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley and chair of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, said he\u2019s heard about the issue and thinks it\u2019s a \u201clegitimate concern.\u201d<\/p>\n But Padden, who led a Republican investigation into the state\u2019s long-running mistaken early release of prisoners, said the DOC shouldn\u2019t use the issue as an excuse for not making sure sentences are accurate.<\/p>\n Wendy Ferrell, a spokeswoman for the state Administrative Office of the Courts, wrote in an email that her office would, \u201creach out to DOC, local prosecutors and our judicial leaders to see how we can work together to find a fix.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe all have the same goal to get this right, and there could be a variety of ways to resolve the issue,\u201d Ferrell wrote.<\/p>\n In his latest budget plan, Gov. Jay Inslee has also proposed hiring 25 more DOC records staffers to make sure offenders are serving their correct sentences.<\/p>\n By Joseph O\u2019Sullivan<\/p>\n Seattle Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"