Oregon Criminal Justice Commission Sentencing Guidelines
The Oregon Legislature created the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission and tasked it with creating guidelines for felony sentences. The Criminal Justice Commission developed a scheme in which a defendant’s “criminal history” is determined ranging from criminal history “A” (the highest criminal history possible involving 3 or more person felony convictions) to criminal history score “I” (no prior felonies or “A” misdemeanors) in a horizontal grid. The Commission then ranked crime seriousness ranging from Level 11 (such as murder) to Level 1 (such as unlawful possession of a controlled substance) in a vertical grid. Once the criminal history and crime seriousness level is calculated, the scores are then matched up to determine the presumptive sentence for that specific offender and their crime of conviction. Through the Sentencing Guidelines, an offender could receive a sentence ranging from 18 months of probation with no jail or up to 269 months of prison.
