Attorney general's office admits it gave 'deeply flawed' advice to DOC on early prison releases

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — State Attorney General Bob Ferguson disclosed Thursday that an assistant attorney general advised DOC in 2012 that it could wait for a computer program glitch to be fixed even though it would result in prisoners being released earlier than the law allows.

As many as 3,200 prisoners since 2002 were mistakenly released earlier than they should have been freed because of a software coding error that miscalculated sentences. At least two deaths have been connected to those let out early.


In a letter to "the People of the State of Washington," Ferguson on Thursday said its investigation showed that when in 2012 it was brought to DOC's attention that its computer system was miscalculating required sentences changes, "the advice provided by this office was deeply flawed."

"At that time, an Assistant Attorney General (AAG) failed to recognize the significant public safety and other implications of the problem when she advised that it would be 'reasonable' for DOC 'not to manually fix' the numerous incorrectly calculated sentences affected by the problem. Rather, the AAG advised that DOC should 'wait for the reprogramming to occur.' In giving this advice, the AAG wrote that she was aware that 'though this will result in offenders being released earlier than the law allows for the time being, until OMNI gets fixed, the DOC has been releasing them earlier for a decade (since the In re King decision) and a few more months is not going to make that much difference in light of this... '".

Ferguson wrote, "This legal advice failed the people of Washington and our client, DOC. By advising the client that it was 'reasonable' to not immediately correct this violation of the law, the advice jeopardized public safety and potentially increased liability for the state.

"Our investigation found that the legal advice provided in 2012 was isolated. No one in senior agency leadership, including then Attorney General Rob McKenna, was aware of the problem or the provision of the advice," Ferguson wrote.


In his letter, Ferguson said his office will be rededicating themselves to providing "excellent, ethical and independent legal advice."

The assistant attorney general who gave this "flawed" advice was identified in an accompanying AG report as Ronda Larson, who, it said, worked as an assistant attorney general for the Department of Corrections for 13 years.

He did not say whether  Larson still works for the state.

Click here to read the entire letter.

Click here for the AG's investigative report