Washington lawmakers return to state Capitol to begin 60-day legislative session



OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Shortly after Washington lawmakers kicked off the start of the 60-day legislative session, a Senate committee held a hearing to discuss the erroneous early release of thousands of prisoners over a 13-year period.


Monday's work session before the Senate Law and Justice Committee heard testimony from Corrections Secretary Dan Pacholke on the software coding error that miscalculated sentences, which led to the early release of as many as 3,200 prisoners since 2002. At least two deaths have been tied to the early releases.

Pacholke told lawmakers that a software fix will be in place Tuesday and that officials are doing manual sentence recalculations for all potentially impacted prisoners who are scheduled to be released through Feb. 7.

Two retired federal prosecutors have been appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee to investigate the how the error occurred and why it wasn't fixed sooner.