I noted last week that Washington state, ever in the vanguard of progressive criminal justice (such as its Governor's refusal to carry out lawful executions), had given early release to thousands of prisoners.  This was earlier than intended, mind you, and it was less progressivism than garden-variety carelessness, despite the numerous assurances we hear that early release programs will be carried out with great discretion.  They will, so we are told, keep us just as safe as we are now.

A Washington state prisoner mistakenly released early because of a computer error has been charged with killing his girlfriend in a car crash when he should have been behind bars, officials said Monday.

The revelation comes a week after Gov. Jay Inslee announced that a software coding error led as many as 3,200 offenders to be wrongly released since 2002. He has ordered a review of prisoner releases ahead of a broad fix to the software problem, which is expected early next month.

One of those freed was Robert Jackson, 38, who walked out of prison Aug. 10, four months too soon. He had been convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon and should have been released Dec. 6.

During that time, he fled from a Nov. 11 wreck in Bellevue that killed his girlfriend Lindsay Hill, 35, who was riding in the car he was driving, according to prosecutors and Department of Corrections officials.

Jackson has been charged with vehicular homicide and felony hit-and-run and is being held in jail on $2 million bail, prosecutors said.

He was speeding and impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of the accident, prosecutors said.