Don’t blame DOC for Clemmons’ early release
May 18, 2012, 8:06 AM | Updated: 10:38 am
Pierce County prosecutor Mark Lindquist wanted LaTanya
Clemmons sentenced to 10 years for her role after her
brother murdered four Lakewood police officers.
LaTanya Clemmons, 37, helped the getaway driver Darcus
Allen avoid arrest. She was sentenced to five years.
Lindquist believes in time off for good behavior, but a
50 percent reduction makes no sense to him. “A sentence
of five years ought to be five years or something close to
that,” he said. “I understand giving some time off for
good behavior, but 50 percent off is absurd.”
Before you turn your outrage toward the Department of
Corrections for allowing this to happen, you must realize
the DOC’s hands are tied.
It’s state law: The legislature passed a bill in 2003
that upped the amount of time a criminal could take off
for good behavior. It increased from 33 percent to 50
percent.
Democratic State Senator Jim Hargrove was the prime
sponsor of the bill. Speaking on the Senate floor then,
Senator Hargrove told those gathered, “I think the way
this bill is put-together now a typical reduction in
sentence for one of these minor offenders would be two-to-three months, hardly significant from a public safety
point of view.”
The bill also cut the amount of good time a violent or sex
offender could get, and the reason the Legislature decided
to take this up was over money. Lawmakers were looking
for ways to trim corrections costs.
“I think what we’ve done here,” Senator Hargrove said
in 2003, “is we have taken an opportunity to look at
saving a little bit of money but also I think in balance
increasing public safety for the people of the state.”
Republican Senator Val Stevens also supported the bill
during the 2003. “I believe that even if we didn’t have
this budget-crunch time that this would be the proper way
to re-arrange the way that we are sending people to prison
and the way that we are letting them come out of prison.”
Because LaTanya Clemmons had no record and followed all
the rules in prison, she will get out in July after just 2 and a half years of her five-year sentence.
The time off provision went away July 1, 2010
under the law that passed in 2003. Clemmons squeezed-in
just before that deadline. She was sentenced just 13 days
before.
