| Determining
the defendant’s criminal history category. |
| |
| Based
on the number and seriousness of prior convictions, offenders
are to be placed in one of five criminal history categories:
No/Minor Record, Moderate Record, Serious
Record, Violent or Repetitive Record, or
Serious Violent Record. |
| |
| The
commission adopted an incident-based approach for determining
placement within a criminal history category. This means that
multiple prior convictions with the same arraignment date
are presumed to have arisen from the same criminal conduct,
and are to be counted as one prior conviction based on
the most serious offense of conviction. The presumption
that several offenses arraigned on the same date arose from
the same criminal conduct is rebuttable. |
| |
| A
conviction is defined as any final disposition requiring a
finding of guilt. Examples of final dispositions considered
to be convictions include: Guilty Filed; Guilty; Probation;
Fine; House of Correction Commitment; State Prison Commitment;
Split Sentence; and Suspended Sentence. Examples of final
dispositions not considered to be convictions include: Dismissed;
Continued Without a Finding; Filed (absent a finding of guilt);
and Not Guilty. |
| |
| The
commission established a policy that prior convictions should
only include those offenses which reached final disposition
prior to the disposition date of the current offense for which
the defendant is being sentenced. |
| |
| To
place a defendant into a criminal history group: |
- Group defendant’s
prior convictions by arraignment date into criminal incidents;
-
Using
the Master Crime List, assign an offense seriousness
level to each criminal incident based on the most
serious offense of conviction;
-
Record
the number of criminal incidents at offense seriousness
level 9, level 8, level 7, ... level 1.
-
Using
the criminal history definitions, assign the defendant
to the appropriate criminal history category.
|
| |
| All
delinquency adjudications for offenses in level 7, 8, and
9 should be treated as prior convictions purposes of determining
the criminal history category. In addition, all federal or
out-of-state convictions should be translated into the equivalent
Massachusetts offenses and included. |
| |
| Considerations |
Staircasing
/ Prior Convictions
|
|
Where a prior
conviction is for a crime which has been staircased, if
none of the staircasing factors such as amount stolen or
lost, injury, display of gun, or dwelling/non-dwelling is
ascertainable, the conviction should be assigned the lowest
seriousness level for that crime.
|
|
Illustration
3: A defendant has a prior conviction for Assault and
Battery with a Dangerous Weapon, though the degree of injury
to the victim is unknown. This conviction should be placed
at offense seriousness level 3, the lowest of the three seriousness
levels to which a conviction for Assault and Battery with
a Dangerous Weapon may be assigned. |
|
| |
|
Multiple
Incidents / Single Arraignment Date
|
|
The presumption
that several offenses arraigned on the same date arose from
the same criminal conduct is rebuttable. Multiple convictions
with the same arraignment date may each be counted for purposes
of criminal history placement on the sentencing guidelines
grid where the court is satisfied that each such conviction
represents separate criminal conduct.
|
| |
|
Single
Incident / Multiple Arraignment Dates
|
| Multiple
convictions with different arraignment dates may be treated
as the same criminal conduct for purposes of criminal history
placement on the sentencing guidelines grid where the court
is satisfied that such convictions represent the same criminal
conduct. |
| |
|
Mini-Master
Crime List
|
| To
guide the determination of a defendant’s criminal history,
a "mini-master" crime list has been developed. The
mini-master crime list facilitates a preliminary "match"
between offense abbreviations appearing on the Court Activity
Record Information (CARI) file, and offenses on the master crime
list (see Attachment
B). |
| |
