LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska lawmakers are pushing for answers in their investigation of miscalculated prison sentences that allowed the early release of hundreds of inmates.Former assistant attorney general Linda Willard told a legislative committee Thursday that she notified state prison officials about a 2013 Supreme Court decision that spelled out the proper way to calculate sentences.
Willard says she sent the ruling to a state records clerk, Jeannene Douglass, who questioned whether the ruling was in the inmates' best interest and whether it was practical to deviate from the way prison officials had previously calculated them.
Willard says she believed Douglass was under pressure from her superiors to keep the state prison population from growing too large. She says she assumed that prison officials would handle the situation.
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