Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 1

mmmmmmm.w.a,ny.K wmmmnWM.mm mm i 'JK1 .,,,.1 11 -J 1 mostly cloudy High 79, low 52 Partly cloudy Tuesday Details on Page 2A etatt Jfee $wm- moittlay state ON GUARD FOR 154 YEARS Monday, September 23, 1985 Volume 155, Number 142 198S, Detroit Free Press, Inc. i i JLSL7--J. H1U Parole data is riddled with errors ffi By DAVID ASHENFELTER and MICHAEL G. WAGNER Free Press Staff Writers Three months later, Sanders, 37, robbed another Battle Creek gas station with a short-barreled revolver and fled with $200. Police found him hiding in bushes a few blocks away, and a judge sent him back to "hen Sam Daniel Sanders went to prison in late 1981 to serve six years for robbing a Battle Creek gas station, somebody goofed.

In computing his parole eligibility date, a brison clerk in Jackson overlooked the contend that the error in Sanders' case and those in 1 8 others the Free Press found in a review of 100 cases are flukes. They said virtually all of Michigan's 14,889 prison inmates are serving accurately calculated sentences. The Free Press could find no basis for such confidence. The department's computerized record-keeping system is riddled with questionable data, according to an exhaustive computer study of inmate records. The Free Press early release study, conducted with computer tapes obtained from the Department of Corrections under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, found that: Computerized sentence records for nearly half of the 5,762 people paroled in 1983 contained sentence data that were misleading and possibly inaccurate.

The Free Press couldn't determine how many inmates benefited from or were penalized by the questionable data. The department See ERRORS, Page 8A; prison for 20 to 42 years plus two years for using a gun. "God almighty, that's amazing," Calhoun County Prosecutor Conrad Sindt said after being told about the error. Sindt, whose staff prosecuted Sanders, said: "Frankly, I've suspected that things like this were happening because I couldn't figure out any other way for these people to get out so early. 2,573 wrong numbers The Free Press found errors in nearly 45 percent of the computerized sentence records of the 5,762 inmates paroled in 1983.

Here are the kinds of errors found: 1,759 records with inaccurate sentencing dates, the wrong amount of credit for time served in jail before sentencing, or the wrong date that the sentence legally began. The sentencing date minus credit for time spent-' In jail determines the "corrected date" the date the prison sentence legally began. 392 records in which sentence calculation formulas provided by the Department of Corrections yielded a different date than was shown on the computer tapes. 422 records with a combination of the first two factors. two-year term he had been given for using a gun during the robbery.

According to state law, he was supposed to serve the full two years of that sentence before starting a four-year sentence for armed robbery. No one caught the error, and Sanders, who had already served one prison term for robbing the same gas station in 1 976, was paroled in May 1 983 1 8 months too early. (Had he been required to serve the two-year gun term, he would have received six months of credit under the Prison Overcrowding Emergency Powers Act.) Sam Sanders This is one of the reasons the public is just fed up with the system." Officials at the Michigan Department of Corrections Colts bring Lions down to earth Billv allies -J- brawls Martin breaks arm during fight in bar BALTIMORE (AP) Billy Martin, man. tame try to ager of the New York Yankees, suffered a broken right arm in a fight with Yankees pitcher Ed Whitson early Sunday at a Baltimore ron hotel. Martin held an impromptu news conference when he reported to Memorial Stadium for Sunday game against the Baltimore Orioles with his arm in a cast and a sling.

Whitson, who reportedly suitered a cut up, naa oeen sent NEW YORK (AP) Finance ministers from-the five biggest Western industrial nations agreed Sunday on steps intended to strengthen key European currencies and the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar, whose dominance has fueled record U.S. trade deficits, Treasury Secretary James Baker III announced after a meeting. Baker did not detail any steps to revise the procedures for trading currencies, which a senior Reagan administration official said earlier was the point of the meeting. The steps announced Sunday in firmation of commitments to reduce taxes, an effort by Japan to stimulate domestic demand and French steps to liberalize and modernize financial markets.

Baker told a news conference "We all believe this is a positive means of addressing concerns about the large trade imbalances among our countries." Strengthening foreign currencies against the dollar would, in effect, make U.S. goods more competitive abroad. A WASHINGTON-BASED official See CURRENCY, Page 11A home. "I think it happened when he kicked me," Martin said of the broken ulna bone in the forearm. "He kicked me once in the groin, and once in the arm." The latest in a series of brawls involving Martin was described by a security guard at the Cross Keys Inn as "one of the most brutal fights I've ever seen." Martin had a patch on his left elbow and assorted bruises, which he said came from those trying to restrain him.

Members of the Yankees' traveling party said the brawl started in the same hotel bar where Martin was involved in a shoving match cluded British and West German reaf France adm See BRAWL, Page 11A its ordering Greenpeace PARIS (AP) Premier Laurent Fabius admitted Sunday night that ship blast scheduled to sail for French Polynesia to protest France's testing of nuclear weapons. The ship was sunk July 10 by two mines attached to its hull. A. photographer aboard was killed. Fabius, in a statement to reporters at his office, said that officials had lied See GREENPEACE, Page 11A French secret service agents were or dered to sink the anti-nuclear protest ship Rainbow Warrior in New UPI Photo Detroit quarterback Eric Hippie is caught from behind by Indianapolis defensive end Scott Virkus late in Sunday's Indianapolis victory.

The high-flying Lions carried a 2-0 record into Indianapolis to face the winless Colts, but lost, 1 4-6 The game story is on Page 1 H. The Rainbow Warrior, flagship of the Greenpeace movement's fleet, was inside today Mexico City buries dead, digs for living AP and UPI MEXICO CITY Rescuers using dogs searched for survivors trapped under rubble Sunday as international aid poured in to help Mexico recover from two devastating earthquakes that killed thousands and left legions of homeless people living in the streets. Funerals were staged for some of the estimated 3,000 victims already identified in the wake of the quakes Thursday and Friday. A shortage of caskets prevented elaborate ceremonies. "They are buried in individual shrouds hurriedly prepared, and the ceremony doesn't last more than 10 minutes without a funeral prayer, without flowers," the El Universal newspaper said.

The government has said at least 3,000 See QUAKE, Page 11A 2G ANN LANDERS City, country slickers turn out for FarmAid BUSINESS CLASSIFIED 5E LOTTO 3,7,11,15,30,34 BUSINESS NEWS SATURDAY 067 and 8075 CAREER MART 8-10E CLASSIFIED ADS 1-1 4D, 2-5F HOROSCOPE 12H COMICS 12-13H MOVIE GUIDE 13H CROSSWORD PUZZLE 13H OBITUARIES 1C DATELINE MICHIGAN 3C TELEVISION 6-7G DEATH NOTICES 3F EDITORIALS 6A ENTERTAINMENT 4-5G To place a classified ad, call 222-5000, Monday-Friday 8-6, Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 10-4. FEATURE PAGE 11E V. Free Press Photo bv GEORGE WALOMAN Doc's prescription: A woman at Sweetest Heart of Mary Church greets Cardinal Glemp. Pomp, pride greet cardinal By GARY GRAFF and DEBORAH KAPLAN Free Press Staff Writers CHAMPAIGN, 111. The ponchos and umbrellas appeared early in the crowd, but a morning and early afternoon of rain didn't dampen the spirits of the 78,000 who attended FarmAid, the benefit concert for American farmers held here Sunday at the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium.

It was a distinctively American celebration, an odd combination of college students, farmers and rural Illinois residents sharing country and rock and roll music and congratulating each other on staging a large-scale superstar benefit to raise money for folks in their homeland. "Americans are always so into helping other people, like Live Aid (the July co'ncert to benefit the starving in Africa)," said Paula Schwartz, 32, of Southfield, Mich. "We'll all see some direct benefit of what happens here." The rain presented the only serious problem of the day. It began falling less than an hour after the concert started, while roek band Bon Jovi was on stage, and continued fnto the See FARMAID, Pafle 10A nery, has made his fortune in oil, but his primary interest remains relations between the superpowers. He is telling anyone who will listen that November's U.S.-Soviet summit in Geneva between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev might be a blockbuster.

IGNORING Whjte House and See Page 2A bright costumes and flowers, Knights of Columbus with huge feathered hats and crisply uniformed Second Corps; Polish Army veterans from World War II squeezed through the door and down I the center aisle of Detroit's Sweetest Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church. Trust and trade heal all ill will few living Americans to have dealt repeatedly and successfully with the founders of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This guy knew Lenin personally. Armand Hammer, 87 and or By THOM SHANKER Chlcaoo Tribune LOS ANGELES It is difficult to determine how to address him. To his staff, he is "The doctor." Although he has a medical degree, he has never practiced a day of medicine in his life.

He has undertaken delicate diplomatic missions, but always without portfolio. Yet he Is one of the By RUTH SEYMOUR Free Press ReliBlon Writer As three elderly Detroit men set up lawn chairs Sunday afternoon and stared in frank curiosity from across the street: Medieval-sounding church bells tolled three, then clanged deeply for several minutes. A procession of Polish children in Behind the procession came 50 See GLEMP, Page 11 A 1 if 1.