Evan Ebel, who ultimately was responsible for the death of two men before being shot down in a stand-off, was sentenced to Colorado State Prison for a crime streak that involved several robberies and a carjacking. He was released despite not serving any time on the additional sentence of four years he incurred for assaulting a guard.
Corrections officials failed to note that the additional years were meant to be served after Ebel’s original sentence — Colorado law automatically make additional sentences concurrent with the initial sentence unless noted otherwise.
After being released on parole in January, Ebel cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet and went on to kill Colorado Department of Corrections chief Tom Clements and pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon. He was killed in Texas after a shootout with local law enforcement.
The question of how Ebel was able to get out of prison early has left many in Colorado scratching their heads. In regard to this, Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) has ordered a sweeping audit of the sentences of thousands of problematic cases to ascertain that sentences were fairly and properly applied. The cases of 281 inmates have been brought to the courts’ attention as having incorrect sentences, and 56 cases have already been changed.
Seventy percent of the reviewed cases have been rejected for amendment and more than 2,000 cases are pending review. “The audit is doing what it was supposed to do, and we are working with the courts to correct any errors found,” Hickenlooper spokesman Eric Brown said.
The audit will look at 8,415 offenders convicted of at least one of 13 crimes. Only individuals still in the control of the correctional system will be reviewed, via direct incarceration or parole. Individuals who have been granted formal release will not be reviewed. Officials believe that 2,500 cases will warrant closer inspection.
Dubious incentives
“I think it would be logical to be concerned,” said Roger Werholtz, the interim executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections. “Here’s the reality: Sentencing laws are so complex, it is not unusual to find errors in how sentences are communicated from courts to the state.” Werholtz’ predecessor was Clements.
In the United States, sentencing reviews after conviction are a rarity. Prosecutors, who are judged on their conviction rates, are reluctant to admit that they made a mistake, even at the expense of leaving an innocent person falsely imprisoned. While there is no official tally of sentencing errors to exist nationwide, there have been attempts to quantify their effects.
In 2009, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm introduced to the Michigan legislature a financial analysis of the cost of incorrect sentencing. For the study’s range of 2003 to 2007, it was estimated that Michigan inmates are serving 1,832 unnecessary years in prison at a cost to the state of $54,960,000.
Janice Dagher-Margosian, a lawyer for the Michigan State Appellate Defense Office (SADO) at the time, argued that the problem arises in financial restraints and pressures on the courts and defense attorneys to spot and correct sentencing errors.
“The mistakes are coming from untrained, unpaid, unsupported local trial counsel. They don’t calculate the guidelines properly, don’t know how, don’t get the report soon enough,” Dagher-Margosian said. “Systemically, there is not a way to challenge those things right now because of the structure of indigent defense.”
In 2005, in review of sentencing recommendations with the Maryland State Prison, doctoral candidate Emily Owens discovered that approximately one in 10 trials received an improper sentence in Maryland. While the incorrect recommendations — which came from prosecutors and court clerks misreading the sentencing worksheet — did not automatically lead to incorrect sentencing, it did give judges the moral imperative to sentence outside of the recommendations, based on assumptions that the recommendation is wrong.
Subtext to a prison sentence
The incorrect recommendations manifested themselves in other adverse ways. A study showed that for each month a recommended sentence is in excess of the actual recommendation, the inmate will serve — on average, four additional days.
Adversely, for every month a recommended sentence is in deficit of the actual recommendation, the inmate will serve 13 fewer days in prison. Additionally, parole boards take seriously recommended sentences, and will make determinations on the prisoners’ right to be released based on it.
In 2012, state prison officials in Nevada engaged in an audit of inmate sentences after it was revealed that a computer glitch may have accidentally added convictions to inmates’ records. When the Nevada Department of Corrections’ computer system was retrofitted in 2007, a programming malfunction incorrectly calculated sentences for certain types of convictions. No cases of inmates receiving additional time inadvertently were found.
In light of budget cutting and an increasing number of unfilled judicial positions, the pressure on the judiciary only promises to increase. As sequestration cuts come into effect, the pressure on court officials to do more with fewer resources suggest an environment where more sentencing errors are likely to proliferate.
In 2004, the New York State Office of Court Administration decided, as a cost-saving measure, to merge the state’s criminal and supreme courts. Since that decision, the unified court in the Bronx has had to deal with three-year waits to serve a criminal case, dropped dockets because of an increase in plea bargains and expired statutes of limitations, and a denial of the people’s right to a speedy trial and due defense.
As seen with the Ebel case, what courts do, or don’t do, matters. The courts are the people’s only line of recourse, and when the courts fail, it’s the people who suffer.