In April, Bridget McDermott was a prisoner at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and expected to spend another six months there before her release, which the corrections agency projected for Oct. 4.
But the prison’s calculation was wrong. She spent an extra 21 months in Oregon’s women’s prison when she should have been free, after serving about 14 years on a 2010 robbery, burglary and kidnapping conviction in Lane County.
Her best friend died while she was wrongly imprisoned. That extra time also prevented her from planning a smooth transition into the community and a regular life.
Instead, she suddenly learned of her release. “When he came with that news, I literally thought I was having a heart attack,” McDermott said in an interview with the Capital Chronicle.
McDermott is among a few people who’ve been suddenly released in recent years following an internal review by the Oregon Department of Corrections of its calculation of release dates, a process that takes into account factors like time served, charges and concurrent and consecutive sentencing. Public records and the corrections agency’s response back up her account, which also shows the chaos that can unfold amid the scramble to quickly release a person from prison without a release plan in place.
And though the agency changed its sentencing calculation policy after a 2021 lawsuit, it still does not have a policy for handling a sudden release.
“Sentence calculation errors are not common, and it is the goal of ODOC to have an accuracy rate of 100%,” Amber Campbell, a spokesperson for the agency, said in a statement.
‘I’m begging you’
Her pathway to that early release started simple enough: McDermott scheduled an appointment for April with a counselor to start making plans for life after prison, an intense process that usually starts about six months prior to release. She was due to be released Oct. 4, 2024.
But on April 3, the corrections counselor approached her in a communal area of her housing unit, not a private meeting room.
He told her the agency had “really screwed up.”
She had been wrongly imprisoned since July 2022, he said, asking her to gather her things to leave that evening.
“They were literally kicking me out in the middle of the night with nothing, no funds, really, no documents, no ride,” she said.
The prison was on lockdown that night, she said, so she couldn’t call anyone. She pleaded to stay another night.
“I started crying,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’m begging you. Let me stay the night until I can get someone called.’”
Prison officials agreed. She left the next morning, standing next to her belongings as she waited for her ride.
“I hadn’t had time to give it away, so I was just out there like an idiot with a bunch of boxes,” she said. “Nobody searched my boxes. I could have had a small person in there. They could have come home with me.”
Agency responds
In a statement, the Oregon Department of Corrections said it has changed the way the agency calculates projected release dates and shaves time off sentences for good behavior, also called earned time credits.
In McDermott’s case, the robbery and kidnapping charges were not eligible for a sentence reduction, the agency said. Prison officials said calculating release dates gets complicated when a person is concurrently sentenced to prison time for different charges that qualify for a reduction in time while others do not.
A 2021 court case filed by an inmate challenged the agency’s policy of not reducing time when someone is serving time concurrently for both types of charges. In response to the case, the agency changed its policy so prisoners could get earned time off for eligible convictions when the sentences run concurrently with other charges that don’t qualify, the agency said in a statement.
“The revised policy was applied to all new sentences, as well as applied retroactively to all (inmates) who fit the circumstances,” the agency said.
To comply with its policy, the agency reviewed 2,641 inmate reports to look for those qualifying for an early release. Five people were released immediately.
“This was an extremely large project that included the review of many files that had complicated sentencing factors to consider,” the agency said.
The policy change applied to McDermott, changing her release date from Oct. 4, 2024 to July 5, 2022. But the agency didn’t elaborate on why it held her 21 months beyond that.
“The underlying issues in Ms. McDermott’s case are being reviewed,” the agency said.
Besides McDermott and the five earlier releases, the agency has not let anyone else out suddenly because of the change. And the agency has not established a policy on how to handle releases like McDermott’s.
“Currently there is not an established policy or procedure for releases that are identified as immediate, although we have recently discussed plans to develop one,” Betty Bernt, an agency spokesperson, said in an email.
In general, that process includes working to enroll them in Medicaid, arrange transportation and housing, with a release bag with hygiene items. They also provide a gift card for food while waiting for food benefits.
Turning her life around
McDermott is still working to turn around her life. Now 56, she wants to become a drug and alcohol counselor.
In the events leading up to her charges in Lane County, McDermott became addicted to prescription drugs and fell into depression. Eventually she robbed an emergency veterinary hospital where she worked. She doesn’t remember any of it, she said.
“I woke up in the county jail wondering why the air conditioning was on so high in the house,” she said. “I didn’t have a real recollection of what had happened.”
After she realized that she had held an employee at the hospital, trying to steal their drugs, she was plagued with guilt.
Her attorney warned her that potentially she faced 50 years in prison. She took the first plea offer that came her way and later asked for her records to understand the sentence.
“I was so drugged up, amazingly drugged up, it took years for me to unscramble chemically at Coffee Creek,” she said.
Sarah Bieri, a staff attorney with the Oregon Justice Resource Center’s Women’s Justice Project, said her client, McDermott, is still evaluating legal options after spending more time than necessary in prison.
For now, McDermott is working for a janitorial services company that cleans construction sites. And she may work as a bus driver for a transit company.
She’s had a lot to get adjusted to since she first entered prison on Jan. 7, 2010.
“The economy is shocking, the homelessness is shocking and the technology is overwhelming,” she said.
McDermott said she believes in accountability, but with a focus on restoration.
“I’m not opposed to incarceration, but it should be intentional,” she said. “You should be getting your life back in order. You should be getting some help.”
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.
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