POSTED: 10:27 a.m. PDT May 12, 2003

Chris Halsne
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter

An exclusive KIRO Team 7 Investigation exposes a secret state program that quietly frees prison inmates too sick to sit inside their cells.

It's called a "medical furlough." Prison doctors have the authority to allow an inmate incapacitated by illness to be released.

Video

Prisoner Set Free On Medical Furlough

Usually, the prisoner is on his deathbed, or so the state would like us to think.

Michael Sipin's crime includes getting drunk, slamming his new sports car into a tree and killing David Taylor. For that, a judge recently sentenced Sipin to three years in prison for vehicular homicide.

After two months, Sipin was out, not for good time or for an appeal, but because the state deemed Sipin too "injured" to serve his time locked up.

"I don't understand this at all. This is pathetic," said Laura Taylor, David Taylor's widow. "I want to know what in the world is going on here because this is not justice. Some legal string might have been pulled, but this is not justice."

KIRO Team 7 Investigators wondered just how injured or ill Sipin really was after we videotaped him seeding his yard. He was easily able to walk around with a heavy bag and seemed able to carry on perfectly normal conversations. We showed our exclusive hidden camera tape to Laura Taylor.

"He's not sick at all!" she said.

The Washington Department of Corrections told Taylor Sipin was confined to bed or a wheelchair, and he was released to a "hospice" setting.

"So many covert lies with the department of correction. They are not suppose to be working for prisoners. They're suppose to be working for the public," she said.

State laws say inmates can leave prison on medical furlough if the condition is "serious enough to require costly care or save the state money and the offender is physically incapacitated due to age or medical condition."

King County Deputy Prosecutor Amy Freedheim says Sipin doesn't look "incapacitated" to her.

Chris: "He certainly doesn't have a walker there."
Amy: "No, he doesn't have a cane. He's not even limping."

Freedheim, who helped convict Sipin, said DOC officials told her Sipin was furloughed because he had a brain injury which made it hard for him to communicate and Sipin needed a walker to move around.

Chris: "Does that image of Michael Sipin match what the Department of Corrections told you?"

Sipin is getting credit right now for time served while he's home, just like he was when he was behind prison walls. Every day he's out on medical furlough is another day that Laura Taylor says she feels cheated of justice.

Sipin's attorney, John Henry Browne, said his client still has numerous injuries from his drunken car crash and does legally qualify for medical release.