OLYMPIA — A Senate panel on Thursday approved the hiring of an outside investigator to sort through documents received as part of that chamber’s inquiry into the erroneous early release of thousands of prisoners in Washington state.
The Facilities and Operations Committee voted 4-3 to hire attorney Mark Bartlett, a partner at the firm of Davis Wright Tremaine to assist with the Senate Law and Justice Committee’s probe into to a software coding error that led to the early release of up to 3,200 prisoners since 2002 because of miscalculated sentences. At least two deaths have been tied to the early releases.
The F&O panel also voted, unanimously, to set up a website that would allow people to submit comments regarding problems at the agency. The website will allow the comments to remain anonymous unless submitters choose otherwise. A letter seeking input from employees of the Department of Corrections is also in the works, with the committee voting for a letter to be sent once agreement is reached on the wording.
Earlier this month, legislative subpoenas were issued by the Senate Law and Justice Committee seeking emails, reports or data compilations by the Department of Corrections and the governor’s office related to the early releases.
“As a co-equal branch of government, we have an obligation to get to the bottom of this,” Sen. Mike Padden, a Republican from Spokane Valley who is chairman of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, said before Thursday night’s vote.
The separate probe will run concurrent to one already being conducted by two investigators hired by Gov. Jay Inslee.
Democrats on the committee argued that hiring another investigator — who, like the governor’s investigators, is being paid $325 an hour — is premature. The F&O Committee voted to set an initial cap of $50,000 for costs related to the second investigation, to be paid from the committee’s operations account.
“It’s important that we do find out what happened,” said Sen. Andy Billig, a Democrat from Spokane and member of the F&O Committee. “I guess the concern that remains is that taxpayers are already paying for one investigation. It seems to make sense to see the results of that and then see what gaps that we need to fill in.”
The Department of Corrections was first alerted to the error — which started in 2002 — in December 2012, when a victim’s family learned of a prisoner’s imminent release. The family did its own calculations and found he was being credited with too much time.
However, even though the agency consulted with attorneys regarding the error the same month and scheduled a fix for the program, it was repeatedly delayed and ultimately, never done. Department of Corrections Secretary Dan Pacholke said he didn’t learn of the error until the middle of last month, and the governor says he didn’t learn of the issue until that same time, when corrections’ officials notified his staff.
A software fix to the coding error, publicly disclosed by Inslee on Dec. 22, was implemented this month.
Inslee spokeswoman Jaime Smith wrote in an email Thursday night that the Senate’s actions “will not distract us from ensuring completion of the ongoing investigation.”
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