Commission on Sentencing previews cleaner digital guideline form for CASER application

Commission on Sentencing staff presented a redesigned guideline sentencing form intended for the commission's next‑generation application, CASER, and outlined how the new layout will make key information — including sentence recommendations and offender eligibility — easier to find in court.

Commission staff said the new form will be cleaner and more flexible than the legacy SGS Web form, combining related fields, allowing up to two offenses to appear on a single form, and dynamically populating offense‑specific assessments (for example, DUI or Megan’s Law requirements) only when relevant to the case.

Staff framed the redesign as an effort to make the “bread and butter” recommendation — the sentence suggestion — stand out on the form so judges and practitioners can see it quickly. They said offender‑level information (demographics, risk…