Spot Sentencing

Every cell on the felony sentencing grid is divided into three ranges of permissible minimum sentences—mitigated, presumptive, and aggravated. Most defendants (69 percent) are sentenced in the presumptive range, about a quarter (27 percent) are sentenced in the mitigated range, and the remaining 4 percent are sentenced in the aggravated range. At the low end of the grid the difference between the ranges is not great in terms of total time to be served. For a first-time offender convicted of a Class I felony, for instance, the difference between the shortest and longest possible minimum sentences is 5 months. Farther up the grid, however, the difference is vast. Four years separate the low end of the mitigated range from the high end of the aggravated range for a Class C, Prior Record Level I defendant. Put another way, when you look across all three sentencing ranges there are 49 permissible minimum sentences available to the judge in that cell of the grid. Despite the availability of so many permissible minimum sentences, the Sentencing Commission has long noted an interesting phenomenon with respect to sentence selection. Over three-quarters of all active sentences are located on one of four particular “spots” on the grid: the lowest spot of the mitigated range (18.5 percent); the lowest spot of the presumptive range (29.1 percent); the highest spot of the presumptive range (28.3 percent); and the highest spot of the aggravated range (3.1 percent). Amy Craddock & Tamara Flinchum, Structured Sentencing Statistical Report for Felonies and [...]