At ALI’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday, May 24, members voted to approve The Model Penal Code: Sentencing project.  This completes these three portions of the project.

Launched in 2001, under Reporter Kevin R. Reitz of the University of Minnesota Law School, who was joined in 2012 by Associate Reporter Cecelia M. Klingele of the University of Wisconsin, the project reexamines the sentencing provisions of the 1962 Model Penal Code in light of the many changes in sentencing philosophy and practice that have taken place since its original publication.

The Sentencing project provides guidance on some of the most important issues that courts, corrections systems, and policymakers are facing today, including the general purposes of the sentencing system; rules governing sentence severity—including sentences of incarceration, community supervision, and economic penalties; the elimination of mandatory minimum penalties; mechanisms for combating racial and ethnic disparities in punishment; instruments of prison population control; collateral consequences, including guidelines, notification, and order of relief; victims’ rights in the sentencing process; the sentencing of juvenile offenders in adult courts; the creation of judicial powers to review many collateral consequences of conviction; and many issues having to do with judicial sentencing discretion, sentencing commissions, sentencing guidelines, and appellate sentence review.

The Proposed Final Draft that was approved at the meeting includes 10 new provisions:

§ 6B.08. Multiple Sentences; Concurrent and Consecutive Terms

§ 7.02. Choices Among Sanctions

§ 7.03. Eligible Sentencing Considerations

§ 7.04. Sentences Upon Multiple Convictions

§ 7.07. Sentencing Proceedings; Presentence Investigation and Report

§ 7.07C. Sentencing Proceedings; Victims’ Rights

§ 7.08. Sentence Modification

§ 7.09. Appellate Review of Sentences

§ 6.14. Victim-Offender Conferencing; Principles for Legislation

§ 305.8. Control of Correctional Populations That Exceed Operational Capacity; Principles for Legislation

The draft also contains amendments to four previously approved Sections, listed below.

§ 6.06. Sentence of Incarceration

§ 7.07A. Sentencing Proceedings; Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law

§ 305.6. Modification of Long-Term Prison Sentences; Principles for Legislation