Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley.
OLYMPIA – Former Corrections Secretary Bernie Warner, identified by witnesses as a key player in the release of thousands of inmates ahead of schedule, has become a formal focus of the Senate’s independent investigation of the Department of Corrections.
Senate Law and Justice Chair Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, filed a request with the governor’s office and the Department of Corrections for public records regarding Warner’s work as secretary from 2011 to 2015. In addition, Padden notified DOC it can suspend efforts to comply with a Senate subpoena seeking documents regarding the early-release scandal. Padden noted the high value of the documents received to date and the importance of the new request.
Padden said Warner’s leadership has become a central question for the Senate’s investigation.
“The buck doesn’t stop in the middle,” Padden said. “We keep hearing from witnesses about the upper-management decisions that contributed to this alarming management failure at the Department of Corrections. And it raises the question of whether the governor’s office provided proper oversight to a troubled state agency.”
DOC released approximately 3,200 felons ahead of schedule during a 13-year period starting in 2002. At least two of those improperly released inmates have been implicated in deaths and are awaiting trial. An incomplete review of records by DOC establishes numerous other crimes also may have been committed by felons who should have been behind bars. Although DOC learned of the problem in 2012, it delayed a software fix numerous times and continued releasing inmates ahead of schedule.
Last month, the governor’s office released an investigatory report that placed the blame squarely in the middle, largely absolved upper managers and was silent regarding the oversight role played by the governor’s office. The governor’s report has been challenged by every witness who has testified before the Senate since its release.
In one case, a manager demoted for delaying the software fix was able to provide records to the Senate showing he was not present at the meeting where the decision was made.
“We’ve learned some remarkable things during the course of the Senate’s investigation, and I think it demonstrates why it is important for the Legislature to conduct an independent inquiry, in full public view,” Padden said. “There are many people, from day one, who did not want this investigation to go forward and who do not want to face up to the reality of what we have uncovered. I think the testimony we have gathered speaks for itself.”
Many witnesses have cited Warner’s leadership style, describing it as distant and inattentive to detail. Testimony before the Senate indicates Warner’s emphasis on a problematic computer project may have led the agency to divert resources from fixing its computer software.
Padden’s records request, issued on behalf of the committee, seeks all emails, letters, or other communications between Warner and the governor’s staff, as well as travel records, leave and comp time records, and job descriptions.
Padden noted some have questioned the $125,000 cost of the Senate’s inquiry, while failing to ask questions about the cost of the governor’s investigation, its narrow focus and lack of transparency. Unlike the governor, the Senate has gathered testimony in public and allowed members of both political parties to ask questions of witnesses. In addition, witnesses have been allowed to review their written statements and make corrections. Padden also noted that the family of a teen-ager allegedly killed by an improperly released inmate in Spokane has filed a $5 million claim against the state.