By Noelle Crombie
oregonlive.com
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Corrections has tracked down 17 people it released from prison and put them back behind bars in a surprising roundup that follows confusion over a recent court ruling.
The effort began over the weekend when the department issued a total of 20 warrants for people in nine counties. Most were on post-prison supervision, corrections officials said.
The roundup represents the latest development in the Department of Corrections’ controversial response to an Oregon Supreme Court ruling over the summer dealing with prison sentence lengths and how time in jail before trial should factor into a defendant’s overall sentence.
The political firestorm over the interpretation of the ruling has now spread to the Oregon Department of Justice and Gov Tina Kotek’s office.
Corrections officials have said they acted on legal guidance from the Department of Justice when they reexamined the sentences of an estimated 11,000 prisoners — the vast majority of Oregon’s prison population.
That led to revised earlier release dates for about 350 prisoners, including 40 who were immediately released. In some cases, defendants saw their sentences dramatically whittled down, drawing an outcry from prosecutors who said they were blindsided by shortened sentences and early releases.
The court ruling upended the Department of Corrections’ longstanding practices around calculating prison sentences.
Corrections officials have long granted people credit for time they serve in jail, but the Supreme Court ruling “significantly constrained” the agency’s discretionary authority in calculating sentences, said department spokesperson Amber Campbell.
The Supreme Court ruled that a trial court may give credit for concurrent jail time on separate allegations in another county. It also found defendants may get credit for time they spent in jail for violating the terms of their probation.
Broadly, prosecutors said the ruling affected two groups: prisoners serving consecutive sentences for multiple convictions and those facing prosecution in multiple counties.
Campbell said the Department of Justice advised the agency to follow a “literal interpretation of court judgments.”
Many of those lower court rulings were not clear, Campbell said. She pointed to one Jackson County case where the judge stated that the defendant should receive credit for time served for each count in the conviction, significantly reducing the person’s overall sentence.
Under the Department of Corrections review, at least 67 prisoners saw their sentences cut by at least a year. In one case, the department trimmed a dozen years off a prisoner’s sentence.
Then this month, the Supreme Court issued a clarification, which led the Department of Justice to issue “new advice,” recommending that corrections officials apply time served to the total sentence instead of to each count in a conviction, Campbell said.
That led to another round of reviews that turned up 20 defendants who were released too early, she said. That included people who had been serving time for assault, coersion, sexual abuse and manslaughter.
Among them: Joaquin Cowart, 47, who was sentenced in 2021 for sexually abusing a child and possession of images depicting child sexual abuse. A judge sentenced Cowart to four back-to-back three-year sentences, or 12 years in prison.
The Department of Corrections recalculated Cowart’s sentence, applying the more than 31/2 years of time he spent in jail before sentencing to each count and moving up his release date to June 3, 2021 — 10 days after he was sentenced.
The agency released him in September.
Assistant Director for Correctional Services Larry Bennett told district attorneys in an email Tuesday that the agency “is changing direction” on how it assigns credit for time served to prison sentences.
Those briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly said Kotek’s aides were closely involved in the decision to return people to prison.
A spokesperson for Kotek did not respond to questions about what, if any, direction her office gave the Department of Corrections.
A spokesperson for Attorney General Dan Rayfield declined to elaborate on the guidance the Department of Justice gave corrections officials, saying only that it “provided risk-based legal advice.”
“We outlined the options DOC could take in response to the ruling and explained the risks associated with each,” said spokesperson Jenny Hansson.
The Department of Corrections “makes the policy decisions associated with implementation,” she said.
Kotek acted promptly to issue warrants, said Hansson, who called it “the right thing to ensure public safety.”
Corrections officials said Oregon State Police and parole and probation officials, as well as local law enforcement officers, helped find and arrest people who were returned to custody.
John Wentworth, president of the Oregon District Attorneys Association, applauded the Department of Corrections’ decision to reverse course and called for “a full accounting of the missteps that led to this situation.”
“The improper and unlawful release of these offenders placed victims and the public at risk,” he said.
The Oregon Criminal Justice Truth Project, a nonprofit made up of retired prosecutors, had lobbied Kotek to halt the agency’s sentencing recalculation effort.
The group’s executive director, Kevin Neely, said the latest move by the Department of Correction affirms what the courts originally intended.
He said it also promotes “public safety and will reduce trauma of victims.”
Thaddeus Betz, an attorney with the Oregon Justice Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of prisoners, said returning people to custody raises “a number of concerns, both substantive and procedurally and morally.”
He pointed to a case of a man who was released in August. He said the man did well in the community and was in touch with his probation officer. Betz said the man was arrested over the weekend “in the dead of night.”
He said the process for people to appeal the department’s decision to return them to prison is “murky and vague.”
“To me, it sounds a little Trumpian frankly … where it’s just like, let’s just grab some people,” Betz said.
In the case of Cowart, the sex offender released two months ago, the Department of Corrections issued a warrant for his arrest on Saturday and Cowart’s father delivered him Tuesday to the Oregon State Police offices in Central Point, according to authorities.
His projected release date now: Nov. 18, 2029.
Jackson County District Attorney Patrick Green said the Department of Corrections’ approach in recent months has been “haphazardly done” and harmed victims, including the person Cowart abused.
“There is no taking that back,” Green said.
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