| Guidelines strive to be consistent |
By: PAUL BEAUMASTER, Guest Columnist
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Posted: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 11:37 pm
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Our criminal justice system uses a structured format to sentence criminals. The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines are rules that judges must apply in felony sentencing. This promotes uniform and proportional sentences and helps ensure that sentencing decisions are not influenced by race, gender or the exercise of constitutional rights by defendants. The Rice County Attorney’s office uses sentencing guidelines as a starting point for all plea offers and sentencing recommendations.
The sentencing guidelines are written and approved by an 11-member commission. Three members are judges appointed by the Supreme Court. Others are appointed by the governor and include the commissioner of corrections, a peace officer, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a probation officer and public citizens, one of whom must be a crime victim.
In 1981, when the guidelines went into effect, 5,500 felons were sentenced. In 2006, 16,446 felons were sentenced. Sentencing lengths have increased dramatically and the guidelines have become far more complex. The Sentencing Guidelines Commission modifies the guidelines to support development of policy and practices in keeping with Minnesota’s sentencing goals: public safety, proportionality, avoidance of unfair disparity, rational use of correctional resources, and transparency.
The guidelines provide a grid which ranks each criminal offense by severity level and criminal history points (prior criminal convictions). Offense levels and criminal history scores guide the user to a cell or box in which the appropriate sentence is located. Each box provides a range based on a “middle of the box” sentence, from which judges can sentence 15 percent lower or 20 percent higher. The grid splits offenses into presumptive commitments to the Commissioner of Corrections (defendant sent to prison) and presumptive stayed sentences (defendant not sent to prison). The system provides known determinative sentences, meaning everyone involved knows the length of the sentence the criminal will serve prior to release. Prison time is set out in months and the Commissioner of Corrections awards “good time,” allowing one-third of the time pronounced by the sentencing judge to be served on probation. A criminal sentenced to 60 months would serve 40 months in prison and be on probation for 20 months. The “good time” can be taken away if a prisoner misbehaves while incarcerated. There is a separate grid for ranking sex offenses.
Although not perfect, the guidelines enable anyone to determine whether the sentence received by a defendant is comparable to sentences imposed on others committing the same crime and having the same criminal history. The guidelines give a framework for argument based on reasoning as to which crimes are the most serious and warrant a long prison sentence.
The Sentencing Guidelines Commission meets regularly, and meetings are open to the public. If you believe a crime is not ranked high enough or ranked too high, you should make your voice heard.
For further information, visit www.msgc.state.mn.us.
— Paul Beaumaster is the Rice County attorney. |
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