Human foul-ups set inmate free early

SANTA FE (KRQE) - Human error led to the early release of a career criminal soon busted for breaking into homes, state prison officials said Thursday.

About 6,600 inmates are locked up in state prisons. That makes for a lot of people to keep track of, but state officials say they messed up.

Don Gutierrez, 34, was let out on probation more than two years early. Prison officials said after he skipped a probation hearing the career criminal ended up in handcuffs again just months after his erroneous release.

Albuquerque police said Gutierrez burglarized two more homes. However, it wasn't until the District Attorney’s Office got the new case that someone noticed Gutierrez was not supposed to be out of prison yet.

Bureau Records Chief Cathleen Catanach said it came down to a missing file in Gutierrez's record.

She said Gutierrez’s recent prison term was for a parole violation. While he was locked up for that, the courts decided to revoke his entire probation, which added more time to his sentence.

Catanach said that probation violation sentence was not sent to the prison.

“We did not have the judgment and sentence that was the term of imprisonment of seven years,” Catanach said.

Records officials said the courts are responsible for delivering that judgment. However, they said bottom line is that prison workers fouled up, too.

“We were aware that Mr. Gutierrez had gone out to court,” Catanach said. “So there should have been some more follow up with our department.”

Since then, two other cases of wrong release dates popped up. Prison officials said two inmates were not released on time.

“There's an issue that we need to fix and make sure that those things don't happen again,” Deputy Corrections Secretary Joe Booker said.

Booker has now ordered a massive audit. He said the record of every single current inmate will be recalculated, and some inmates already released will be reviewed, too.

He said this will make sure that those recently released should not be locked up.

“If those cases happen we will notify law enforcement and take proper protocol,” Booker said.