Woman kept past release date awarded $174,000

[Greg]

Corrections error costs $174,000

Department kept woman in jail 18 months too long
The Olympian

Jeremy Pawloski
The Olympian

OLYMPIA — A Thurston County jury decided Thursday that the state Department of Corrections must pay a woman $174,000 for keeping her in prison a year and a half after she should have been released.
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Melanie Hinkle, 25, who now lives in Alaska, should have been released July 4, 2004, but was released Jan. 4, 2006, because of an error in the way the department calculated Hinkle's "good time" in prison. Hinkle went to prison in 1997 after pleading guilty to charges related to the slaying of an elderly couple.

Her attorney, Bill Coats of Bellingham, said that the department applied less "good time" toward Hinkle's sentence than it should have, he said.

"Good time" is time taken off of a sentence based on an inmate's good behavior or participation in educational or self-improvement programs.

"It wasn't a malicious error on the part of the Department of Corrections," Coats said.

A records manager at Pine Lodge, a women's correctional facility in Medical Lake, discovered the error during an audit, according to a court filing by the state Attorney General's Office, which represented the department in the lawsuit.

"This miscalculation is unique, nevertheless, DOC continues to review its record-keeping process to ensure miscalculations don't occur," department spokesman Jeff Weathersby wrote in an e-mail to The Olympian.

The money due Hinkle is to be paid from the state liability fund, which is part of the state's general fund and is paid from various state agencies' insurance premiums, said Janelle Guthrie, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office. The money comes from public tax dollars, she said.

In an earlier court ruling, Thurston County Judge Richard Hicks found that the department incarcerated Hinkle beyond her lawful release date. It was up to the jury to put a dollar value on Hinkle's loss of earnings and liberty while she was incarcerated and to decide on compensation.

Coats said the question of how much someone's liberty is worth is difficult to answer.

"Liberty is something we all know is precious, but how do you go about compensating someone?" he said.

The $174,000 figure the jury decided on is broken down by the $39,000 she would have earned based on her current job as a manager at a grocery store in Alaska, plus $135,000 for her loss of liberty for 18 months, Coats said.

Coats said he argued to the jury that the loss of liberty in prison boils down to simple things such as not being able to decide when to go to the bathroom or what to eat.

The 12-person jury agreed unanimously on the award.

Hinkle spent most of her incarceration at the Women's Correctional Center near Purdy.

She was 15 when she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit burglary in connection with a 1997 double homicide in rural Grant County, Coats said.

Coats said Hinkle overheard a group of teens talking about killing someone but didn't know they would follow through on it. She was not present for the slaying of Homer Smithson, 89, and his wife, Vada, in their home near Quincy, Coats said.

Three men are serving life sentences for the Smithsons' slayings.

Hinkle moved to a suburb of Anchorage after her release, Coats said.

"We all hope that when somebody's released from prison that they're able to be productive members of society, and she's done that," Coats said.

Hinkle was unavailable for comment Thursday.