The United States Sentencing Commission voted on Dec. 12, 2025, to publish for public comment a proposed amendment that would simplify how courts compute a single offense level in cases involving multiple counts, Commission research associate David Rutter said in a data presentation.

Rutter said the proposal would replace five current rules in Chapter 3, Part D of the Sentencing Guidelines with a single Section 3D1.1 containing four subsections that set out when to aggregate conduct, when to compute counts separately and apply a count-based adjustment, how to select the controlling offense level across different guidelines, and which convictions are excluded.

The Commission framed the amendment as intended to simplify an often-complicated application of the current rules and to address observed application errors that can lead to sentencing disparities. "The proposed amendment would replace the 5 guidelines in chapter 3, part d of the guideline manual with a single guideline at Section 3 d 1.1 that provides all the steps necessary to determine the single offense level for multiple counts," Rutter said during the presentation.

Using FY2024 data, the Commission analyzed about 10,800 multiple-count cases and estimated that 85% would see no change in the original final offense level under the proposal, 8% would have an increased offense level and 7% would have a decreased offense level. In the subset of cases where the proposal would raise levels, the Commission estimated an average increase of one offense level; where it would lower levels, the average decrease was about two offense levels.

Rutter summarized how the current rules operate and why the amendment was drafted to be outcome‑neutral for many cases. He reported that current multiple-count rules applied in nearly 11,000 cases with complete guideline application data in FY2024 and that in practice most multiple-count cases involved closely related counts. "The guidelines listed in new subsection a are the same guidelines that require aggregation under current section 3 d 1.2 d," he said when describing the list of guidelines the Commission would aggregate under subsection (a).

The Commission also presented demographic and offense characteristics of individuals impacted by the current multiple-count adjustment. Rutter said individuals impacted by the adjustment are most commonly Black (over one-third of impacted individuals versus 24% of the total caseload), are overwhelmingly male, have an average age of 37, are more likely than the overall caseload to have had a weapon or firearm involved in their offense (40% versus 13%), and are more frequently convicted under statutes carrying mandatory minimum penalties. He also reported that a larger share of these individuals were convicted at trial relative to the total caseload (the presentation compared plea rates: 90% guilty pleas among impacted individuals versus 97% guilty pleas overall).

Rutter warned that some transcript text was redacted in the presentation slides and that a small number of case counts lacked sufficient information to determine grouping reasons. He also noted that, while roughly 2,000 unrelated-count cases were subject to a multiple-count adjustment, in about a little more than 200 of those cases the adjustment did not change the final offense level because of Chapter 4 enhancements or very high baseline levels.

The Commission invited public comment and directed interested parties to its website for the full proposed amendment and supporting data. The transcript lists a comment deadline of "02/10/2020"; the Commission provided the submission address as comment@ussc.gov and by mail. The date as printed in the transcript appears inconsistent with the Dec. 2025 presentation; interested commenters should confirm the correct deadline and submission details at ussc.gov.

The presentation concluded with the Commission urging public input on whether to promulgate the amendment; no vote tally was stated in the presentation recording available in the transcript.