Dori: How can you murder an 11-year-old girl and only get 23 years in prison?

Buckley Police Chief Jim Arsanto did not believe convicted murderer Michael Sanchez would be released a minute early from his more than 26-year prison sentence. So when he found out the Washington justice system let Sanchez out almost three years early, it made him physically ill.

“I remember talking to my assistant chief about a year ago when he told me Mr. Sanchez was let out of prison,” Arsanto told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “I was just sick to my stomach. We actually had an argument about it and I had to track it down, just to make sure, because I could not believe that this man would be let out a single day before his full sentence, let alone almost three years early.”

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Arsanto was a first responder in 1990 when 11-year-old Shannon Potter disappeared in South Prairie, Wash. A massive search effort began and the girl was eventually found murdered by blows to her head from a hammer. Michael Sanchez, who was a volunteer in the search effort, ultimately became a suspect and police found the girl’s swimsuit and t-shirt in a burn barrel on his property.

In 1992, Sanchez was sentenced to 320-months-to-life in prison, which in and of itself seems like a crime to Dori.

“Can somebody explain to me how you can murder an 11-year-old girl and only get 26 years in prison?” Dori asked. “That means if he had served his whole sentence, Shannon Potter would have only been 37 years old when he got out. Twenty-six years is not a fair trade for an 11-year-old child’s life. There is no equivalency.”

In Washington State, a “life” sentence is also referred to as an indeterminate sentence, according to Heather Songer with the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office. That means Sanchez served a minimum of 320 months, and then the Department of Corrections’ Indeterminate Sentence Review Board decides if/when he is released from prison. This procedure is determined by state law.

Sanchez’s 320-month sentence was also likely reduced due to “good time,” Songer said. For this type of offense, he would be eligible for 10 percent off his sentence.

Thus, Sanchez, 62, was released after 23 years. Now, police say he struck again.

Sanchez was arrested for first-degree child molestation after allegedly molesting a 9-year-old girl on April 30 at Steel Lake Park in Federal Way while she was learning how to fish with her Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor, according to the Federal Way Mirror.

Arsanto says Sanchez has the right to a fair trial, but that the details of the incident “matches him to a T.” Arsanto, a father of nine and grandfather of nine, said he’s spent his entire career trying to protecting children.

“Shannon Potter didn’t get to a life-sentence according to our state law,” Arsanto said. “Twenty-four years later, she didn’t get to wake up and then continue her life as if nothing happened. She never returns back to earth. And I have a real problem with somebody who … brutally murdered somebody, ever walking our streets … to commit the same crimes over again.

“Life sentences should be all of your natural life and I think the public is under a misunderstanding when you say somebody has a life sentence,” he said. “They don’t understand that with most of those life sentences, those people are going to get out to walk our streets again. And the people that they’ve killed, they don’t get a second chance.”

Dori says Sanchez should never be released from prison again.

“If we just give this guy another slap on the wrist and let him out of prison in a few years, we’re going to be exposing some other child to this kind of danger,” he said. “He has two strikes, you can’t give him a third. You can’t give this guy another chance.”

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