Minn. Sentencing Guidelines Commission hears broad overhaul proposals; public commenters split over severity increases

Saint Paul — The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission convened a public hearing Nov. 20 to take testimony on a package of proposed revisions to the 2025 sentencing guidelines, including changes to criminal-history scoring, revisions to offense-severity rankings and several procedural clarifications.

Chair Kelly Lynn Mitchell opened the hearing by describing the commission’s comprehensive review and the specific proposals preliminarily adopted by unanimous votes on Oct. 9, 2025. The proposals would change the four components of the criminal-history score (prior felonies, custody status at the time of the offense, prior misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors, and prior juvenile adjudications), amend Guidelines section 5a (the offense severity reference table) and section 5b (severity levels by statutory citation), clarify the guidelines’ purpose and principles, clarify the burden of proving out-of-state offenses, display ranges in shaded grid cells and add a “true first offender” mitigating factor to the list judges may cite when departing from presumptive sentences.

The commission has posted the full proposed modifications on its website and will leave the record open for written comment for five calendar days after the hearing; written…