Pennsylvania Updates Sentencing Guidelines – What you need to know and why they’re important

Recently the Pennsylvania put out new guidelines for Judges and attorneys regarding sentencing. These guidelines are incredibly important because Judges use them to fashion appropriate sentences following a conviction at a Judge or Jury Trial. In addition, these guidelines are used during plea negotiations by district attorneys and criminal defense lawyers. Finally, the sentencing guidelines are utilized when determining whether a plea offer is appropriate and the probability of a certain sentence following a plea before a Judge.

What is Prior Record Score?

Sentencing guidelines are composed of two main elements- offense gravity score and prior record score. Prior record score as the name implies is a number based on a person’s prior criminal history within the criminal justice system. This prior record score calculation would include convictions not only in Pennsylvania but also out of State in places like New Jersey, New York, and Delaware, which border the Commonwealth.

What is an Offense Gravity Score?

Offense gravity score is a number which is based on the seriousness of the crime or offense. The higher the number, the more serious of an offense. Judges utilized prior record scores and offense gravity scores to arrive at sentencing guidelines. In Pennsylvania, unlike New Jersey there are few mandatory minimum sentences and Judges do not need to impose guidelines sentences on a defendant that was convicted following Trial or following an open or negotiated plea for the Court.

Why Judges Follow Guidelines?

Judges typically, however, make sentences within the guidelines to avoid being overturned on appeal by the Pennsylvania Superior Court or Supreme Court. When Judges deviate either upward or downward from the guidelines there is a better possibility that a higher Court will overturn the sentence and send the case back down to the lower Court to reconsider the matter.

What Makes the New Guidelines different?

The new guidelines are much more comprehensive than the previous addition, which were in place for more than decade a prior to this revision. These new guidelines consider and assign numbers to enhancements such as deadly weapons used or possessed. In addition, the guidelines assign points to situations where a crime or offense is committed within a domestic relationship either against a member of a household, spouse, or significant other.

The guidelines also are much more precise in determining prior record scores based on convictions. There are four separate categories of crimes ranging from nonviolent misdemeanor to violate felonies. Previous guidelines did not use such detailed calculations and there was a significant amount of gray area due to this issue.

Finally, the guidelines have created more categories and offense gravity scores to correspond to those categories in an attempt to consider a specific situation which arises during the course of sentencing.

Why You Must Understand the New Guidelines?

If you are charged with a crime in Pennsylvania, your criminal defense lawyer must review the guidelines with you to properly advise you on your options in your case. The guidelines should not be utilized simply during post-Trial but rather to determine the strength of a plea offer, assist in plea negotiations and weigh the consequences if the individual is convicted following a Trial as opposed to accepting a plea.