How much time in prison is enough to compensate for the loss of a life, to bring justice for loved ones left behind and accountability to the person responsible?
That was at the heart of a July 24 Monroe Circuit Court hearing.
A Bloomington man serving a 6-year sentence for driving impaired and causing the death of a 50-year-old woman wants to be released on home detention to receive substance abuse treatment not available at the prison where he’s incarcerated.
Caleb Washburn has served just 15 months at a minimum-security prison in Plainfield since Judge Darcie Fawcett sentenced him in April 2024.
During the recent hearing, Stacy Lamb’s family lamented her loss, expressing dismay and concern at the possibility of 35-year-old Washburn’s early release from incarceration.
In emotional statements from the witness chair and through letters chief deputy prosecutor Jeff Kehr read aloud, Lamb’s survivors said 15 months behind bars isn’t enough.
“Home detention is an insult to Stacy’s life and to her family,” one writer said. “We are left with nothing but memories and her ashes.”
Releasing Washurn to home detention and monitoring through Monroe County’s Re-Entry Court “sends a message that the life of a woman we loved so much is worth just a few months in jail,” a sister wrote.
Another sister asked the judge “to consider the depth of the devastation” the June 10, 2022, crash caused. “Her life mattered. The punishment he receives should reflect that.”
Lamb, a USPS postal carrier with a daughter and three grandchildren, was on an after-supper walk with her two dogs in the 6400 block of West Airport Road that night. At 8:45 Washburn’s 2006 Pontiac Vibe crossed the center line, left the road and drove into Lamb, who died from blunt force injuries and blood loss.
Washburn pleaded guilty to causing death when operating a motor vehicle with a controlled substance, the potent opioid fentanyl, in his system. A plea agreement dismissed two other impaired driving causing death felonies.
Kehr said Washburn should serve his term in prison, not on home detention. “No modification was promised when he was sentenced,” he said. “We join Stacy’s family to oppose an early release.”
Drug treatment at center of case
Defense attorney Katharine Liell acknowledged the family’s concerns. She said she’s advocating for re-entry court, local treatment and home detention because Heritage Trail Correctional Facility, where the Department of Correction sent Washburn, doesn’t offer a comprehensive drug-treatment program.
Liell said her attempts to have Washburn transferred to a state prison that offers such program had failed.
When Fawcett sentenced Washburn last year, she recommended to the DOC that Washburn be considered for the state’s Purposeful Incarceration initiative, where a defendant can seek a sentence reduction after successfully completing the DOC’s recovery program.
“We expected he would continue to get addiction treatment in prison, but the DOC doesn’t offer it where he is,” Liell told the judge. If released to re-entry court, she said, Washburn “can get back to treatment, back to his job, back to supporting his children.”
Fawcett said she will inquire about other options for prison-based addiction treatment Washburn could be part of. She set another hearing for Aug. 19 when she will announce her decision about the early-release request.
“I do share the state’s concern about the amount of time in DOC,” she said, “and how that weighs against the loss of a life.”
Chris Lamb usually went on evening walks with his wife and dogs but stayed behind the night of the fatal crash. He heard sirens and emergency vehicles nearby, then sped to the scene in his golf cart. Police wouldn’t let him get close.
He was the last to testify at the sentence modification hearing. “I am opposed to his early release to home detention. And with all due respect judge, I don’t think the original sentence was enough. We’ve been given a life sentence.”
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Man seeks prison release, home detention and addiction treatment in OWI death case
Reporting by Laura Lane, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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