Report to the Minnesota Legislature reveals a troubling lack of judicial adherence to our sentencing guidelines

In 1980 Minnesota became the first state in the nation to adopt a sentencing guidelines structure. The guidelines that were adopted were designed for judges to follow to “ensure that the sanctions imposed for felony convictions are proportional to the severity of the conviction offense and the offender’s criminal history” and to ensure the sanctions are consistent both geographically and demographically.

The 2025 edition of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Annual Report to the Legislature was released in mid-January. It reveals how our courts have strayed from the sentencing guidelines over the years, and how this trend is worsening.

Imprisonment Rate

Minnesota’s imprisonment rate has consistently been among the lowest in the nation. In 2023, Minnesota’s imprisonment rate stood at 151/100,000 citizens, less than half the national average.

Separating violent offenders from society is the surest way to prevent continued violence, and incarcerating offenders offers the Department of Corrections the surest way to administer programming that offers these offenders the tools and support to avoid future criminal behavior. Our low incarceration rate is poorly serving Minnesota’s law-abiding citizens and Minnesota’s criminal offenders.

Departures

A major reason our imprisonment rate remains so low is that our judges are departing from the sentencing guidelines and avoiding prison commitments at record levels. In 1982 the gap between a presumptive prison sentence and an actual prison sentence was virtually non-existent (0.1%). That gap has consistently grown over the years, and in 2023 the gap stood at a record 14.6%. 

Further illustration of troubling departure trends comes in the form of “Mitigated Dispositional Departures” — meaning a sentence of probation instead of a prison sentence called for by the sentencing guidelines.

In 2023, Minnesota’s judges departed from presumptive prison commitments 42% of the time. At the same time, our judges failed to “aggravate” a single presumptive probation up to a prison commit. Not a single judge tried a single case and determined the facts and circumstances of the defendant’s actions merited an upward departure from the dispositional guideline of probation.

To add insult to injury, the crime that received the largest percentage of downward dispositional departures (55%) was second-degree assault, also known as assault with a dangerous weapon. Second-degree assault is the charge frequently applied to non-fatal shootings, especially in the metro area. A crime this serious should not result in a sentencing departure, and certainly not 55% of the time. We are either serious about gun violence, or we are not.

Metro Area Effect

Focusing on the metro area reveals more troubling information. In 2023 Ramsey County (Second Judicial District) and Hennepin County (Fourth Judicial District) ranked first and second in the highest mitigated dispositional departure rates at 48% and 45% respectively. They maintained their top rankings in mitigated durational departure rates, though switching orders — Hennepin 37% and Ramsey 29%. 

These grossly inflated departure rates occurred in our two most populated counties and in the two counties which together represent nearly half of all the reported person crimes in the entire state. The judicial departures in these counties do not happen in a vacuum, and the percentage of departures involved represents a significant and unacceptable threat to public safety in Minnesota.

Use of a Firearm in Commission of a Crime

Another troubling revelation in the 2025 report involves the continued poor adherence to the legislative intent around mandatory minimum prison commitments for crimes involving the use of a firearm. 

In 2024, there were 1,779 cases submitted to county attorneys in Minnesota for crimes allegedly involving the use of a firearm. This was the second-largest number of these cases, just behind the 1,805 submitted in 2023. (As a point of reference, the number of similar cases in the early 2000s remained consistently between 500-700).

Of the 1,736 cases involving the use of a firearm that Minnesota county attorneys charged in 2024, just 504 (29%) resulted in a conviction and the application of the mandatory minimum prison sentence. A full 71% of the cases were resolved in some other manner that diverted away from a mandatory minimum prison sentence. Minnesota’s judicial performance pertinent to these firearm cases is unacceptable and it skirts around the legislative intent to create a persuasive deterrent against using a gun in the commission of a crime.

Comprehensive Review

A final note on the 2025 report. The Sentencing Guidelines Commission is undertaking a “comprehensive review” of the entire set of guidelines in 2025. There have been indications from many of the commissioners that they want to adjust the sentencing guidelines to conform to the sentencing practices of Minnesota’s judges. This is backwards. The proper response should be to address the departure process to ensure the judges more consistently adhere to the guidelines as established. 

The comprehensive review makes it important for the Minnesota Legislature to assert more active control over actions taken by the Sentencing Guidelines Commission – an unelected body of appointed commissioners. The current statutory language governing the commission’s work allows the commission to make changes to the guidelines which take effect automatically, absent action by the Legislature. The statute should be updated to eliminate the “passive” passage of changes and require Legislative approval for all proposed sentencing guideline changes.