Sentencing Guidelines Commission advances package of rerankings, criminal‑history changes after comprehensive review

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Sentencing Guidelines Commission on Aug. 11 heard the final synthesis of a two‑year comprehensive review and stakeholder outreach and endorsed a staff‑led package of changes that would rerank certain offenses and change how criminal history and custody status are handled in sentencing calculations.

Commission Chair Kelly Mitchell, opening the work session, framed the day as a culminating review: “Today is the day when it all comes together and we get to see the sum total of our work and and decide, is this the direction?” she said, urging commissioners to focus on the package’s substance and remaining gaps.

The package the commission discussed includes: proposed rerankings for a subset of vehicle‑related homicide and great bodily harm offenses and several assault offenses; a proposal to move “failure to register as a predatory offender” off the predatory‑offender grid and onto the standard grid (with distinct placements for first and subsequent offenses); and several criminal‑history reforms including removing juvenile adjudications from the adult criminal‑history score, shortening the decay window for prior convictions, and converting custody status from an element of the criminal‑history score into a separate durational add‑on to the guideline box.

Nut graf: The commission’s work is driven by research and broad stakeholder engagement, including 164 participants across two rounds of outreach. Staff told commissioners that the changes are intended to make the guidelines easier to apply, reduce some sources of disparity and…