The man accused of killing two DeKalb County police officers in January might have been sent to prison six months earlier except for an oversight by a probation officer and a charge dropped because of a missed court date.

The state Department of Corrections said Friday it has disciplined a probation officer and is reviewing all operations of its DeKalb office as a result of its failure to react to the June 30 arrest of William Woodard for two alleged felonies, burglary and criminal damage to property, at a home in the Atlanta portion of DeKalb County.

Woodard, who also has used the spelling "Woodward," was on six years' probation for his third felony drug conviction when he was arrested. But the judge who put Woodard on probation — and who could have sent him to prison for violating probation — was not told about the new arrest. And the judges who considered the new burglary case were not told about his probation.

After 17 days in jail, he was set free when neither the burglary victim — who was Woodard's ex-girlfriend — nor the arresting Atlanta police officer showed up for a court hearing.

The charge was dismissed and referred to the DeKalb district attorney's office, where no action was taken until Jan. 28, when Woodard was indicted by a grand jury for the 2007 burglary.

The indictment came 10 days after Woodard was arrested and charged in the killings of DeKalb County police Officers Eric Barker, 33, and Ricky Bryant, 26. Police quote witnesses as saying that the officers were frisking Woodard in an apartment complex parking lot when he began firing on Jan. 16.

Woodard, 27, faces a possible death sentence.

Stan Cooper, probation director for the Department of Corrections, cautioned that it is not possible to know what a judge might have done about Woodard's probation status after his arrest in 2007. But he said a probation officer's failure to notify the judge, along with the findings of a review of that officer's other cases, prompted the department to cut the officer's pay by 5 percent.

Meanwhile, the department launched a review of the entire DeKalb office. Cooper said he could not talk about the findings of that review because it is incomplete.

The department's tracking system noted Woodard's arrest and sent an e-mail to the DeKalb probation office two days later.

That should have prompted an investigation and a report to the Superior Court judge who originally sentenced Woodard, Cooper said. The judge then could have considered revoking Woodard's probation, sending him to prison possibly until 2011. For the short term, a "probation hold" would have kept Woodard in jail until such decisions were made.

Instead, no judge involved in the case learned all of Woodard's background.

On the day of his arrest, a DeKalb magistrate set bond at $7,000. Court records give no indication that the Atlanta police officer who arrested Woodard told the judge about his felony record or the probation. Instead, the judge's handwritten note on an arrest warrant mentions "3 prior misd. [misdemeanor] convictions."

Chief Magistrate Winston Bethel said the judges in his court rely on arresting officers to inform them of suspects' criminal histories. The Atlanta officer did not respond to repeated inquiries about the June 30 hearing made through the Atlanta Police Department's public information office.

Woodard could not make bond after the initial hearing and remained in the DeKalb County Jail. But on July 17, the charge was dismissed by a second magistrate. Bethel said the Atlanta police officer did not appear for the second hearing, leaving the judge no choice but to dismiss the charge.

Atlanta police spokesman Eric Schwartz said the department received no notice that the officer missed a hearing, and he said the officer did not recall missing one in Woodard's case.

DeKalb chief assistant District Attorney Don Geary said his office's records show neither the victim nor the officer appeared for the hearing. Because the Magistrate Court would have dropped the case without the victim, he said, his office did not send a notice to the Atlanta Police Department about the officer.